D&D 1E 1e Play Report

Celebrim · Mar 7, 2012

We were unexpectedly short a player, so I broke out Lost Shrine of Tamoachan, quickly threw together the outline of some characters, randomly distributed them, and set to play with the expressed goal of seeing how long the players could go before I TPK'd them.

On the good side 1e plays fast.

But it also reminded me very very quickly why I left 1e behind and why I'd never go back. It's just not the game for me.

1) It's very difficult for a DM to run. No, it doesn't require tons of math, but it does require tons of judgment. Switching from my 3e homebrew to 1e was like switching from Visual Studio to Notepad to do my programming on. Sure, it's a leaner and cleaner text editor, but its really doing nothing to help me run the game. There was scarcely a proposition the players could offer that didn't require a major judgment call and an ad hoc ruling for me to evaluate. It's almost impossible to know how fair you are being. The module itself recognizes this deficiency and spends most of its time describing the ad hoc rules you are expected to judge common propositions by. As a result, despite the leaner cleaner monster entries, it often required more rules text to describe an encounter than 3e would in the same situation. This resulted in a situation where upon reflection, you realized that a lot of the details about the situation which would have been nice to know where left out in favor of describing miniature throw away rules systems, many of which scarcely seemed fair themselves. So despite fairly large text blocks, I was forced to make more stuff up on the fly than I would for my own work. This was especially true because the system encourages PC's to propose concrete highly tactile actions, yet from encounter to encounter the particular details offered changed, resulting in situations where if the PC's approach problem with an existing toolbag, the DM has to wing it as to whether its still relevant.
Many DM's say that they enjoy this but I have never understood why. This is not the sort of things that I want to waste my time thinking about during a game. I want to spend my time making play evocative, funny, colorful, and exciting, not trying to figure out what the situation is and how I should handle basic propositions. I write things down so I don't have to remember them or create them during the stress and pressure of the game. I have rules so that I won't have to make fiat judgments all the time. 1e failed repeatedly on this measure.
2) Despite being overly vague, the rules managed to be overly fiddly. Lacking any unifying abstract fortune mechanic, the tendency encouraged by the text was to create a very fiddly subsystem for resolving situations not covered by the rules. Since there is no way to tell whether some one can climb something, they either fiat do or don't or you create a fiddly system for figuring it out on the spot. Since there is no unified swimming or atheletics mechanic, the rules created a fiddly system that measured to the 1% chance the chance of drowning, which took into account the encumbrance of the individual at the 5 pound interval, his dexterity, his constitution, and how bulky his armor was. And despite all these realistic inputs, the resulting resolution mechanics after the fortune was determined in no way resembles anyone's ordinary experience in a swimming pool, ocean, or pond and were so wacky, illogical and arbitrary as to leave me struggling for explanations to provide the players for why something occurred as it did. And the fiddly math and statuses that I was supposed to remember did add up.
3) The system really did disempower the players. This is something I never really noticed or gave voice to back when I was running and playing 1e, because I had no real basis of comparison and no language to describe the problem if I did, but it was easy to see very early on that the players were suffering from disempowerment relative to my homebrew. Too often they were forced to play, 'mother may I', to interface with the game world. Too often they were in a situation were they couldn't meaningfully interact with the world because they had no way of knowing what the world expected. Too often they were out of control of the situation, because they lacked propositions that would meaningfully effect the game's fortune, resulting in - however well I described them - outcomes decided solely by random chance. All of this occurs to some extent in any game, but it was a clear difference in degree between my 3.0 homebrew and 1e.
4) Terrible balance between characters. I'd always known this was a problem, because well, I've got about 15 years experience with 1e, but the balance of using unbalanced classes, random hit points, and random ability scores is just terrible. Every character was a one trick pony to a much greater degree than in my 3e inspired game. Some characters were basically hopeless. One of the things that drove me away from 1e in the first place is just how much the system tempts players to cheat, and I could tell that those sort of pressures would be back in force if I were using this as my primary system. My power gamers were definately unhappy to one degree or another. If nothing else, all that imbalance is just bad for a tables social dynamics - jealousy, discouragement, anger.

In short, I've decided that for all the speedier, quicker, and leaner play provided by retro-gaming, it's probably mostly nostalgia. We had fun, especially those of us that had played 1e/2e back in the day, but my new players who'd never really played anything but my 3e game were clearly frustrated and not because they weren't used to offering concrete and tactile propositions (something I require for my 3e game as well). But rather, because they were used to having more feedback from the system with regards to the risks they were taking and the probable rewards. This mattered rather little for a one off, but it did remind me why I'd left D&D in disgust about 15 years ago.

Man in the Funny Hat · Mar 7, 2012

Celebrim said:
1) It's very difficult for a DM to run. No, it doesn't require tons of math, but it does require tons of judgment.
...
Many DM's say that they enjoy this but I have never understood why. This is not the sort of things that I want to waste my time thinking about during a game. I want to spend my time making play evocative, funny, colorful, and exciting, not trying to figure out what the situation is and how I should handle basic propositions. I write things down so I don't have to remember them or create them during the stress and pressure of the game. I have rules so that I won't have to make fiat judgments all the time. 1e failed repeatedly on this measure.

As you run 1E over time both the DM and players build understandings of how many, even most of those unruled situations will be handled. It is not surprising that after running 3E etc. that running 1E would be a jarring change. 1E was a rules-heavy step up from Basic/OD&D but still far from the rules-cover-everything of 3E.

Meaning no disrespect, your DMing skills are simply showing signs of atrophy from disuse.

Since there is no unified swimming or atheletics mechanic, the rules created a fiddly system that measured to the 1% chance the chance of drowning, which took into account the encumbrance of the individual at the 5 pound interval, his dexterity, his constitution, and how bulky his armor was. And despite all these realistic inputs, the resulting resolution mechanics after the fortune was determined in no way resembles anyone's ordinary experience in a swimming pool, ocean, or pond and were so wacky, illogical and arbitrary as to leave me struggling for explanations to provide the players for why something occurred as it did. And the fiddly math and statuses that I was supposed to remember did add up.

See, this is where a DM is supposed to tell "the rules" to take a hike and invoke whatever system he prefers to determine success and consequences. 1E had LOTS of stuff like that. A regular parade of people creating fiddly bits for things like climbing and swimming because they wanted fiddlly bits to govern climbing and swimming. Those who wanted a simpler, more efficient system created one or borrowed it from another game.

1E does indeed suffer from not having been UPDATED in 20 years but rather having been abandoned in place in favor of all-new systems.

3) The system really did disempower the players. This is something I never really noticed or gave voice to back when I was running and playing 1e, because I had no real basis of comparison and no language to describe the problem if I did, but it was easy to see very early on that the players were suffering from disempowerment relative to my homebrew. Too often they were forced to play, 'mother may I', to interface with the game world.

Again, this is certainly something that is going to stick out when just jumping cold from 3E to 1E. You wouldn't expect somebody to jump from 1E to 3E and know what/where all the rules are and how they differ, you can't jump backwards in editions and expect ro run the game seamlessly either (with the possible exceptions of moving between 1E and 2E which were very similar).

All of this occurs to some extent in any game, but it was a clear difference in degree between my 3.0 homebrew and 1e.

In a homebrew this phenomenon is going to be even more pronounced, yes?

4) Terrible balance between characters. I'd always known this was a problem, because well, I've got about 15 years experience with 1e, but the balance of using unbalanced classes, random hit points, and random ability scores is just terrible. Every character was a one trick pony to a much greater degree than in my 3e inspired game.

And again I'd say that players with a bit more experience in 1E don't rely on their one-trick provided by the rules. DM's know the typical variety of tasks that THEIR players and PC's will want to attempt and how best to resolve them - or at least where the potholes are and how to avoid them until you can get them filled in.

One of the things that drove me away from 1e in the first place is just how much the system tempts players to cheat, and I could tell that those sort of pressures would be back in force if I were using this as my primary system. My power gamers were definately unhappy to one degree or another. If nothing else, all that imbalance is just bad for a tables social dynamics - jealousy, discouragement, anger.

Well I won't try to speak to your groups social dynamics. As for power gamers... once again, they're moving from a system where there are a preponderance of rules for them to manipulate in well-known and proven ways to achieve "optimum" outcomes. Of COURSE they're going to be unhappy in a system that expects them to stop "playing" the rules and start playing the GAME overall.

On the question of tempting players to CHEAT, I know the temptation to lie about my die results if nobody is watching if my dice are not cooperating but that's not a 1E phenomenon. I guess you'd have to be more specific about how 1E is actually the problem in this regard.

In short, I've decided that for all the speedier, quicker, and leaner play provided by retro-gaming, it's probably mostly nostalgia. We had fun, especially those of us that had played 1e/2e back in the day, but my new players who'd never really played anything but my 3e game were clearly frustrated and not because they weren't used to offering concrete and tactile propositions (something I require for my 3e game as well). But rather, because they were used to having more feedback from the system with regards to the risks they were taking and the probable rewards.

IME, as regards 1E, that's feedback that simply needs to be provided by the DM, or to be learned by the players as a matter of experience.

This mattered rather little for a one off, but it did remind me why I'd left D&D in disgust about 15 years ago.

15 years ago was 1997, the current edition was 2E, TSR had gone bankrupt and ceased publishing, and it was bought by WotC who promptly started plans for 3E. You weren't the only one leaving D&D in disgust. At that time I hadn't had an active game for a year already and wouldn't still until 2001 when I re-formed and moved my group to 3E.

Celebrim · Mar 7, 2012

Man in the Funny Hat said:
As you run 1E over time both the DM and players build understandings of how many, even most of those unruled situations will be handled.

The subject of formal rules versus implicit and unwritten rules is something I've discussed at length at EnWorld. These "understandings" you speak of are simply rules which have the same force and purpose as written rules, but which aren't written down but instead are part of the "common law" or "table culture" of the group. They have no real advantage over formal rules, and several distinct disadvantages, not the least of which is the mental overhead of tracking all these 'understandings' without a concrete point of reference. A certain amount of 'common law' is desirable and probably necessary (no rules set can or should be comprehensive), but its not a selling point for a game that it requires a massive amount of informal rules to cover the most common situations in play.

One of my core beliefs about gaming, based on 30 years of play on both sides of the screen is that 'rules light' is an illusion. Rules light systems end up being systems with large bodies of 'common law' as opposed to 'constitutional law', but that over time these two converge in importance, meaning and impact on the table. This is one of the several reasons why rules light systems are rarely if ever successful in the market. The more times you encounter the same situation - the character wants to climb a wall and he's not a thief - the more tempted you will be to resolve it according to the way that worked for you the last time. Or else, you'll be tempted to change 'the rule' by which you decided whether or not the character could climb the rope or swim the moat because you realized 'the rule' isn't working.

Meaning no disrespect, your DMing skills are simply showing signs of atrophy from disuse.

Meaning no disrespect, but your argument is contridictory and shallow.

For example:

See, this is where a DM is supposed to tell "the rules" to take a hike and invoke whatever system he prefers to determine success and consequences. 1E had LOTS of stuff like that.

In point of fact, this is exactly the complaint that I made. You are now agreeing with my evaluation, and not contridicting it.

If the DM has to "invoke whatever system he prefers to determine success and consequences" then this adds to the burden that the DM is under during play, and any burden that the DM can shift to outside of play is a good one. During play, the DM is simply under too much pressure to be expected to handle rulesmithing in the middle of play. Good fortune systems take time to craft and think through. They aren't something you want to ad hoc on the spur of the moment, and each second you spend crafting rules is a second you are not entertaining your players and pushing the 'story' forward.

I know "1E had LOTS of stuff like that"; what the heck do you think 15 years of experience means? The point is that if you have to ad hoc in a rules system for resolving climbing or swimming, whether you want a fiddly, gritty, one with high versimiltude over a wide range of conditions - swimmer is injured, just ate a large meal, wearing bulky armor, encumbered by 90 lbs., swimmer dexterity, swimmer strength, swimmer con - or one that is more abstract, less granular, and makes for quicker resolution, the DM is still responcible for creating those systems on the fly. That's a harsh additional burden. It's not a burden I can't handle; I may have my flaws as a DM but rules smithing isn't one of them, but even if I can 'pump the iron' I can still tell whether I'm working harder whether I'm actually in shape or not.

Again, my purpose here was to 'retro game' and communicate to players the experience of playing 'old school' as it might have been played 25 years ago. If I had said, "to heck with what the module designer has written here, let's just use a system I prefer, in the long run it would probably be a lot like playing the same module adapted to my 3e house rules. At which point, I probably should have handed out 3e characters. Again, it's not a strong selling point for the system to say, "You can throw it out and make whatever you want." Of course I can. I always do. But sometimes I have to throw out more than others. The sad thing is that in most cases, 1e didn't even give me something to throw out; it was absolutely silent.

Again, this is certainly something that is going to stick out when just jumping cold from 3E to 1E. You wouldn't expect somebody to jump from 1E to 3E and know what/where all the rules are and how they differ...

You are just so hopelessly far off base that I don't know how to begin. I don't expect players to know the rules at all - whether we are playing 1e or 3e. I have a new RPG player who has about 25 sessions in my 3e game and he still has problems working out the 'to hit' roll correctly. Disempowerment is not the same as lacking system mastery. System mastery shouldn't be necessary to empower the players. A completely closed black box system doesn't necessarily disempower the players if the player recieves adequate feedback from the system and has an adequate interface for making meaningful choices. He may not know exactly what rolls are made or the full extent of the modifiers involved, but he has still knows that there is some sort of non-arbitrary resolution. First edition fails utterly here, because its lack of an underlying system tends to mean that the real feedback loop isnt' between the player and the rules, but between the player and the DM. Eventually, if the DM is consistant in his rulings, the player may 'learn the DM', but for me to approach consistancy would require me to run 1e less as written (or not written!) and more like 3e.

And again I'd say that players with a bit more experience in 1E don't rely on their one-trick provided by the rules. DM's know the typical variety of tasks that THEIR players and PC's will want to attempt and how best to resolve them - or at least where the potholes are and how to avoid them until you can get them filled in.

Which is as much as saying that while it's true that the characers are one trick ponies, the DM can create rules that fill in the empty spaces to make the characters more well rounded.

Well I won't try to speak to your groups social dynamics. As for power gamers... once again, they're moving from a system where there are a preponderance of rules for them to manipulate in well-known and proven ways to achieve "optimum" outcomes.

My biggest power gamer is the same player who also doesn't know the rules.

Of COURSE they're going to be unhappy in a system that expects them to stop "playing" the rules and start playing the GAME overall.

And by game you mean what? And why "playing" in quotes?

I'm not at all certain what you mean, but if I may make a guess based on the usual snobbery here, I believe you have entirely the wrong idea of what the proposition -> fortune -> resolution cycle looks like at my table. When playing 3e, "I make a diplomacy check", is not a valid proposition. You don't interface with my game via metalanguage regardless of the system we are playing. Rather, they may make a proposition, "Good morning, goodman baker, may I sample one of your wares.", and I may respond with metaexplanation - in 3e "Make a diplomacy check" - or I may resolve the situation directly by making a fortune check myself to determine the outcome yes/no (or degree of the outcome), and then respond with the in game resolution, "Certainly, m'Lord. Tha finest pasties in all of Amalteen we have, we do, and fresh too. A dozen for just 6 coppers, and you won't get a better deal than that anywhere."

Meaning no disrespect, but I'm not sure you have a clue.

15 years ago was 1997, the current edition was 2E, TSR had gone bankrupt and ceased publishing, and it was bought by WotC who promptly started plans for 3E. You weren't the only one leaving D&D in disgust. At that time I hadn't had an active game for a year already and wouldn't still until 2001 when I re-formed and moved my group to 3E.

My disenchantment with 1e dates back to much earlier than 1997.

All I'm saying is that I played 1e for 15 years and had many a good time, and the nostalgia factor for the three of us that had played in the older error was high, but that ultimately I don't think the way forward is by going backward. I'm sure for some groups it works great. For me though, the experience was a degree of shock at just how bad the system was. I remembered having problems with it, but not to this degree. Fourty-eight hours ago I would have probably been a much stauncher defender of 1e than I am now. Now, while I probably wouldn't fully agree with them either, I'm much more sympathetic with its detractors. I recognize now that my defense of 1e has always implicitly assumed that I'd run it in a way that is ultimately more 3e inspired. Indeed, I was moving in the direction of 3e with my own house rules before I gave up because the work load involved because rules smithing is hard, and that was the era of type writers, monochrome monitors, and floppy disks. Publishing your house rules back then was a good bit harder than today.

Crothian · Mar 7, 2012

1e isn't for everyone. We just put our 1e game on hold (also in Columbus, can't be too many 1e games going on here) and it was great fun. We had a DM that is very experienced with the rules as he also writes OSRIC modules and published many 1e items. Of the player one had never played, 2 had not played for probably 2 decades, and then me who plays and run 1e when I can.

But we also had a player that was going to play but really didn't like the rules and decided to not be part of this game.

Ant · Mar 8, 2012

Celebrim said:
There was scarcely a proposition the players could offer that didn't require a major judgment call and an ad hoc ruling for me to evaluate.
...
Too often they were forced to play, 'mother may I', to interface with the game world.
...
Too often they were in a situation were they couldn't meaningfully interact with the world because they had no way of knowing what the world expected.
...
Too often they were out of control of the situation, because they lacked propositions that would meaningfully effect the game's fortune, resulting in - however well I described them - outcomes decided solely by random chance.

Care to share some specific examples (for the first point, maybe give an example where they could make a proposition that didn't require a judgement call)? Like yourself I played AD&D for some time back in the day and 3.5 is our current flavour of choice. I'm also planning to run an AD&D one-shot so I'm curious about the pitfalls.

Celebrim · Mar 8, 2012

Ant said:
Care to share some specific examples (for the first point, maybe give an example where they could make a proposition that didn't require a judgement call)?

Beyond, "Can I hit it with my sword?", the system wasn't offering much. If you are familiar with the module, practically every room has a rules subsystem described for it so that a significant portion of the module text is describing the chance of drowning (but not for example, how far you move or how fast), rules for non-thiefs climbing, rules for handling balance checks, and so forth. But while the rules for drowing are intricate to the point of being ridiculous - measuring to the 1% chance the chance of drowning based on hit point loss, pounds of weight carried, the bulkiness of armor, the dexterity and consitution of the character - no mention is made whatsoever for another character assisting the drowning character either directly by acting as a life guard or throwing them a rope. Are these actions meant to be automatically successful? Do they change the percentage chance of drowning, and if so, by what degree? And while the writer took great pains to figure out a 'realistic' chance of drowning, he still tracks drowning by simple hit point loss and system is not of general use because the numbers don't work out well for higher or lower level characters (a 100 h.p. character with 90 points of wounds has a 90% chance of drowning, while a 10 h.p. character with 9 points of wounds has a 9% chance of drowning).

The lack of a unified system wide skill system was deeply felt. The subsystems in the text were clunky, difficult to port to other situations, fiddly, and really if they were important to ordinary play had no business being buried in a module.

Probably the worst case is that in the first two encounters very great detail is lavished on the doors in the rooms - which direction do they open, do they have hinges, how much gap is between the edge of the door and the wall, whether they have handles and of what sort. But after presenting these initial tests, these details of door construction disappear from the text, but the first few rooms have taught the player that the doors require a high degree of tangible interaction to open. So for every damn door in the module thereafter, I'm making up descriptions on the fly. These basic details of the room construction established by the text as important, get left out in favor of having to write the rules of play into the room descriptions. There are so much rules in the text covering basic play, that the adventure text suffers as an adventure. Missing also from the description of doors is how long it took to break the hinges or drive the pins out of the hinges when they were exposed. This missing value is extremely important because every second counts in a module with a hard time limit - every 10 minutes you take poison damage.

While it wasn't a rules issue per se, equally bad for me is that the module has detailed descriptive blocks and detailed illustrations. But neither the descriptive blocks nor the illustrations match the fact established earlier in the text that the party can see no more than 10' in any direction - making them worse than useless if you want to stick to the mechanics described in the text. It's like even the author has forgotten the mechanics he's established and now has abandoned.

I was familiar with the module, both from play in the '80's and having owned and read it. It still outshines modern adventures in many ways in terms of creative encounter design, interest of its layout, and how evocative its rooms are, but wow was I ever surprised by how clunky the system was. It's like going back to some show from your childhood nd discovering that it is insipid, infantile, and corny, and thinking, "Did I ever really enjoy this?"

I guess I should give an actual play report.

Ranes · Mar 9, 2012

Thanks for an interesting write-up unencumbered by rose-tinted shades. I'd XP you but I've done that too recently, apparently.

I hope you post a play report. I expect it will prove most entertaining.

Water Bob · Mar 9, 2012

Man in the Funny Hat said:
Meaning no disrespect, your DMing skills are simply showing signs of atrophy from disuse.

I mean zero disrespect, too. But, I have to agree. Reading the OP and comments like:

There was scarcely a proposition the players could offer that didn't require a major judgment call and an ad hoc ruling for me to evaluate. It's almost impossible to know how fair you are being.

Tells me that you're too used to the game telling you what to do instead of you being in charge. 1E does require a much stronger DMing style than 3E.

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] - Why did you choose such a high level adventure? I think, in switching game systems, I would have gone with something a little less complicated--a low level adventure.

Water Bob · Mar 9, 2012

Celebrim said:
This is one of the several reasons why rules light systems are rarely if ever successful in the market.

Ever played Traveller? Especially Classic Traveller?

I think that one sees rules heavy systems for one main reason: Money.

Game companies are basically book publishers. Rules heavy games facilitate more rule books. Rule books typically sell better than Fluff books (because everyone needs the rules!).

Thus, you see a lot of rules-heavy games.

I also think it is trendy. There seems to be a resurgence of rules-lite games in the offering. Which stands to reason--it's a backlash to the decade of rules heavy stuff led by 3E.

Celebrim · Mar 9, 2012

Water Bob said:
I mean zero disrespect, too. But, I have to agree. Reading the OP and comments like...Tells me that you're too used to the game telling you what to do instead of you being in charge. 1E does require a much stronger DMing style than 3E.

You do realize that I DM'd 1e for almost 15 years right? Further, you do realize that I've essentially written my own gaming system for D20? Back when there was a house rules forum, I was a major participant because well I'm stubborn and arrogant enough to never let any game designer tell me how to play my game except me. I'm the guy who has taken Gygax's statements about all DM's being peers to heart. So exactly who the @#$# do you think is used to being in charge if it isn't me?

I don't know how you could be more off base. I'm a Rule Zero sort of DM. Do you have any idea how many threads I've participated in on EnWorld were some bozo has told me I abuse my players, that I'm a control freak, that I'm narcisstic, that I'm sociopathic, etc. because I advocate a DMing style that they think is too authoritarian? And now that I'm not saying what you want to hear, the best come back you can make is, "Your DMing style is too weak"? Seriously?

Why did you choose such a high level adventure? I think, in switching game systems, I would have gone with something a little less complicated--a low level adventure.

Because I deliberately wanted to run a quick one shot, so I choose a tournament module which had no lead up until the dungeon crawl and which I felt would gaurantee a TPK. Most 1st level modules (particularly the ones I own) have comparitively long lead ins. If I'd run B2 we could have easily gotten hung up at the keep for a signficant period. If I'd run U1, most of the session might have been over before they penetrated to the 'sinister secret'. And in any event, I wanted to make sure this was a one off, because if it was part of a continuing story and the players survived then there would have been more desire to finish the story. I'd probably have run Tomb of Horrors, but one of the players had been in Tomb of Horrors before. Additionally, this was a spur of the moment change of plans, so I had to run what I had at hand. And finally, because I knew that 1st level isn't really within the 1e AD&D sweet spot.

But this question itself tells me that you don't have a clue. As I said, there was no math burden in running 1e, nor for me was their a rules burden per se. Nor was their a rules burden for the players, because they are used to my DMing style, my requirements that you 'earn' your fortunes, and most of all to my style of DMing encouraging that players do not need to know the rules in order to play. The burden introduced here is that there is no systematic way to determine fortune mechanics after player propositions that don't clearly succeed (or more rarely, clearly fail) and that the modules own attempt at systemization is incomplete, frequently useless, and terribly fiddly. This problem would in many ways be level independent, and to the extent that it is not level independent would present the highest problems in low level modules where players were forced to rely on gritty game interactions like tieing ropes to things, belaying friends, swimming, climbing, and so forth rather than push button fancy absolute power/obstacle removers like simply casting 'Fly' or 'Water Breathing' or 'Polymorph Self'. Since the party was centered around 5th level, the problems with the system were actually highlighted more than they would have been at 13th level.

I repeat, NONE of the problems had any thing to do with rules burden either on the DM or the players. The rules themselves aren't the problem. It's the extreme silence of the rules on reutine actions in play, forcing you into either thinking through things to come to fiat ruling or ad hocing some sort of fortune mechanic or alteration/modifier to the rules proposed system. It's not that I couldn't modify things on the fly - "Hmm, ok with him helping, let's say that the chance of drowning this turn is reduced by twice the assistants strength." It's not that I couldn't come up with a fortune mechanic - save versus petrification, roll under your ability, etc. - its that this is a very weak and impotent tool compared to what I've built with 3e. Sure, I can bang out code in Notepad if I really wanted to, but why the heck would I want to? Sure, worst come to worst, I can cut boards by hand, but when you have a power saw its easier to get better results and spend more time achieving the result I want rather than worrying about basic crafting issues.