D&D 1E 1e Play Report

[Toric_Arthendain]

Celebrim -
Yes, I had my CRs for orcs and skeletons messed up but I do understand how CRs and ELs work in 3e. It has been awhile since I have run 3e and thus had forgotten about the low level monsters having fractions of CR1. Orcs are a 1/2 CR creature and skeletons are a 1/3 CR. But my intent was correct. If a group of four level 1 PCs defeat a group of four CR1 creatures (let's say ghouls), they would each receive 300xp. Is that a difficult encounter for them? Absolutely. It would be an EL4 encounter which with an EL3 above the party puts it well into the very difficult category. It is not out of the question though as 15% of the encounters in an adventure will typically fall into the very difficult category.

So 300xp each for the four ghouls. Another 150xp each for the four orcs. 100xp each for the four skeletons. Three encounters and they are more than halfway to level 2. A little more than I was saying earlier when I had the CRs incorrect for orcs and skeletons but still pretty quick. I know that encounter design advice in the DMG is pretty specific. You have to be careful not to overburden the PCs with too many difficult encounters. The four ghouls would be on the higher end of the very difficult category. The four orcs would be just barely into the very difficult category at an EL one higher than the party level. The four skeletons is basically EL1 (technically 3 skeletons would be an EL1 encounter for this party of four 1st level PCs). I am fully aware that a single CR1 creature is considered an EL1 for a party of four 1st level PCs and that they would net 75xp each for defeating it. And 10 EL1 encounters would net the PCs 750 xp each, still short of level 2. But in my experience, particularly with published modules, there is more variety of ELs and it doesn't take 10 encounters to reach 750 xp. I am aware that encounters can be scaled based on outside influences that might up the difficulty or reduce the difficulty and I know that individual DMs who have created their own adventures might offer smaller or bigger challenges based on the relative strengths of their PCs and the experience level of the players playing in their game.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Please note that I am not attempting (or hoping) to war with you, or anyone else. Merely responding to a long-standing pet peeve.

Chalice-
I didn't take anything you said as an attempt to war with me.

And I do know that in the 3e books there is advice to make the game your own, use the rules as guidelines, etc. I also know that they make mention of not rolling for everything if role-playing or the like will suffice or if something is easy enough as to not require a roll. But most of the players I have played with in the past are quick to find the appropriate skill to a situation, pick up a d20 and say, "I'm making a Spellcraft check". The rules are there and that makes it easy to fall into the trap of using them as a crutch, in my opinion, particularly from the player side of the screen. And the skill rules do support rolling for pretty easy tasks as there are plenty of DC5's mentioned in the skill descriptions. Yes you can run 3e in a more minimalist style but I have found that most people who play 3e are playing it because they don't WANT to play in a minimalist styled game. They like the added rules complexity.

On top of that, I have maintained all throughout this thread that I like 1e better than 3e. I have never said that 1e is superior to 3e for everyone. I have made sure to say why I personally like it better. I acknowledge that my perspective is my own and I don't expect it to be shared by all. I am not a 3e basher (even argued in favor of it back when 4e came out), and my observations here are purely from my own experience with the system. I realize that there are plenty of people who can come in here and tell me why I am wrong about what I don't like about 3e and how they have problems with things I love about 1e. There are practically as many opinions as there are people on the internet and I understand that.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Celebrim -
Regarding the "norm", I think you hit the nail on the head. "Games as they ought to be in my opinion" is probably the most fitting. That is the basis for much of what has been said in this thread, at least what I have said in my portion of the discussion. I'm taking pains not to allow my game to get to a point that it is "superheroic", or where someone will eventually end up doing 150 points of damage in a round. In games I have run or played in years ago, prior to this most recent 1e game I started last summer, we played that way as well. It was gritty, characters at early levels were fragile. Magic items weren't taking over the campaign. It is all about personal style. I acknowledge you can run 3e in a minimalistic style or a gritty style. I just think it supports and advocates differently than that. As I said to Chalice, most people I know who want to play 3e want to play it because it is more complex, offers more character customization options, has a skill system, etc. They like that about 3e and 3e is geared to support that. 1e is much more of a minimalist system, maybe not as much from the DM perspective depending on house rules, and how many rules from the books they are using or ignoring, but from the players perspective it is minimalistic. Character customization is sparse compared to 3e and there is no skill system built in to the rules. I happen to like that 1e is more sparse and feel it allows for more handwaviness. In play, for me, that runs faster and smoother than 3e. I know that others much prefer 3e for a variety of reasons.

Thus, "Games as they ought to be in my opinion" is quite fitting.

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim -
Regarding the "norm", I think you hit the nail on the head. "Games as they ought to be in my opinion" is probably the most fitting. That is the basis for much of what has been said in this thread, at least what I have said in my portion of the discussion. I'm taking pains not to allow my game to get to a point that it is "superheroic", or where someone will eventually end up doing 150 points of damage in a round. In games I have run or played in years ago, prior to this most recent 1e game I started last summer, we played that way as well. It was gritty, characters at early levels were fragile. Magic items weren't taking over the campaign. It is all about personal style. I acknowledge you can run 3e in a minimalistic style or a gritty style. I just think it supports and advocates differently than that. As I said to Chalice, most people I know who want to play 3e want to play it because it is more complex, offers more character customization options, has a skill system, etc. They like that about 3e and 3e is geared to support that. 1e is much more of a minimalist system, maybe not as much from the DM perspective depending on house rules, and how many rules from the books they are using or ignoring, but from the players perspective it is minimalistic. Character customization is sparse compared to 3e and there is no skill system built in to the rules. I happen to like that 1e is more sparse and feel it allows for more handwaviness. In play, for me, that runs faster and smoother than 3e. I know that others much prefer 3e for a variety of reasons.

Thus, "Games as they ought to be in my opinion" is quite fitting.

Hooray, we are back to the point were we can be in agreement.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Hooray, we are back to the point were we can be in agreement.

Hey, we agreed earlier on the 1e DMG being one of the best RPG books ever written...

 

[MerricB]

No, I'm asserting that each PC requires more experience points to level up in 1e than is required in 3e and that the experience awarded is significantly more in 3e. An orc in 1e is worth maybe 10 xp divided amongst all the PCs that participated in defeating it. An orc in 3e is worth 300 xp to a party of 1st level PCs, divided amongst all of them that participated in defeating it. Those PCs in 3e only need 1,000 xp to hit level 2. In 1e, the thief needs 1,250 and every other class needs more than that. Four 3e PCs defeat an orc and each receives 75 xp. In the same situation in 1e, they each receive 2.5 xp. It takes more xp to level in 1e and the awards for defeating monsters, one of the iconic ways to earn xp, are significantly smaller.

Sigh. That's because 3E has no XP for treasure, unlike AD&D. Once you add in treasure, the XP awards for AD&D become much more comparable to 3E.

One of the most interesting set of guidelines for treasure/monster XP ratios comes in the D&D Companion Rules by Frank Mentzer. Here are the guidelines, for play at high (Name+) levels:

* If you play 1/week, about 3-5 sessions per level gain
* If you play 2+/week, about 6-8 sessions per level gain
* About 1/5 of XP should come from monsters. The rest comes from treasure and possibly bonus awards (completion of a goal, special individual play, alignment play or other aspects of the adventure).

Now, BECMI D&D has much faster progression at higher levels than AD&D does (a cleric needs only 100,000 xp per level above "Name", whilst the AD&D is at 225,000), but the 20% XP from monsters is fascinating.

Once you get back to AD&D, treasure values begin providing problems - especially in the dungeon. Monster Lair treasure in the DMG is rarely useful; instead you get to the tables of random dungeon generation... and they're pretty generous for treasure.

Yes, you'll get a lot of 1,000 copper piece or silver piece hoards, but with two rolls at +10% on that treasure table, there's a very good chance of 250 gold for a first level combat... or gems. And, with gems, random chance can give really big treasure awards. A first level treasure using these tables (and including an eye-balled magic item XP award) averages out at about 800 XP worth of treasure in a 1st level dungeon/monster encounter...

My AD&D group (see the thread elsewhere in the forum) spent a few sessions fighting duergar: 1-4 gems per duergar. That's nice, especially when one very lucky random roll for a group of gems gave 5,000 GP gems!

At this point, the players (cleric and thief) who have played in 10 sessions have reached level 5; so one level per 2-1/2 sessions. (We've actually had 12 session by now, but everyone has missed one or two sessions).

However, part of the point of this is to note how erratic the guidelines are in AD&D for XP from treasure. My experience is that it was far more significant than XP from monsters.

Cheers!

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim -
Yes, I had my CRs for orcs and skeletons messed up but I do understand how CRs and ELs work in 3e. It has been awhile since I have run 3e and thus had forgotten about the low level monsters having fractions of CR1. Orcs are a 1/2 CR creature and skeletons are a 1/3 CR. But my intent was correct.

Your intent may have been correct but your scale was off. It makes your point much more strongly to say, "In 3e orcs are worth 300 XP but in 1e they are only worth 18.5 XP each." Unfortunately, the strength of that point depends on several problems.

A 1e ghoul is worth on average 84 XP each, so the ratio here is less than 4:1 rather than the 30:1 of your original flawed assertion. That still seems like a really big number that makes your point strongly though; however, we must also note that in 1e you also got XP for treasure and I happen to know (because I did the math long ago) that on average each ghoul has this much treasure:

173 cp, 67 sp, 48 ep, 38 gp, 10% chance of 1 gem, 4% chance of 1 jewelry, 0.7% chance of 1 magic weapon, 9.6% chance of 1 scroll.

That seems really minor, but if you work it out it turns out that that's on average more than 250 g.p. worth of treasure. So once we add that into the equation, it turns out that on average the PC's in 1st edition expect to realize (in the long haul) more than 334 XP per ghoul slain. Granted the standard deviation on ghouls and even ghoul lairs in 1e is huge, when we put in all the numbers your really strong point about how much more XP 3e provides turns out to be not so strong or at the very least, something reasonable people can question (unlike your original highly flawed math, which would leave people wondering how in the world I was such an idiot to disagree).

So you are left with your point about how it took more XP to get from say 5th level to 6th level in 1e AD&D than it does in 3e D&D. But it turns out that there is a problem there as well. The amount of treasure recommended to DMs to put in dungeons (per the DMG) or by the examples in published modules is well more than the amount above which is calculated from the MM. In published modules from the 1e era, it turns out that they provide ample treasure to ensure that - if you play modules at least - you'll level just as quickly as in 3e D&D. Indeed this probably isn't an accident, but something Monte probably play tested and worked the math out on.

As for your power leveling through first level by winning encounters with 4 ghouls, I suspect that the outcome of that would be rather similar than the similar encountered described in the example of play in the 1e DMG (gnomes are chewy). Likewise, if four 1st level 3e characters go up against 4 orcs on any sort of regular basis, your going to end up with a PC being critical'd for 18 or so damage and it being a really short campaign. If I remember correctly the examples of play in the 3e DMG make that rather clear as well.

Anyway, so if all of that is true, how is it that many people remember 1e leveling very slowly? The answer is at least in part that many of us had DMs who kept very tight rein on treasure, and largely placed it to make sure that too much magic didn't fall into party hands and that too much XP was earned to quickly and 'easily'.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Anyway, so if all of that is true, how is it that many people remember 1e leveling very slowly? The answer is at least in part that many of us had DMs who kept very tight rein on treasure, and largely placed it to make sure that too much magic didn't fall into party hands and that too much XP was earned to quickly and 'easily'.

That and the fact that many DMs probably ignored xp for treasure. I remember many a DM telling our group, "Gold and magic items are their own rewards". Those guys didn't award xp for treasure. If you are only getting xp for monsters defeated in 1e, leveling is REALLY slow. Other DMs might have given xp for treasure but gave out much smaller amounts of gold and magic and thus the totals were lower. And still others had their own systems for awarding xp that I wouldn't begin to speculate on.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Sigh. That's because 3E has no XP for treasure, unlike AD&D. Once you add in treasure, the XP awards for AD&D become much more comparable to 3E.

You are absolutely right, Merric. But there is encouragement in 3e to offer xp awards for completing story goals or for defeating traps or for good role-playing. Some published 3e modules have story awards built in. Of course, some 1e DMs might give xp for these sorts of things too. In fact, in a group I played in years ago, the DM didn't use treasure for xp in 1e. He gave xp for monsters and then offered ad-hoc awards based on some criteria that I as a player wasn't aware of.

My AD&D group (see the thread elsewhere in the forum) spent a few sessions fighting duergar: 1-4 gems per duergar. That's nice, especially when one very lucky random roll for a group of gems gave 5,000 GP gems!

At this point, the players (cleric and thief) who have played in 10 sessions have reached level 5; so one level per 2-1/2 sessions. (We've actually had 12 session by now, but everyone has missed one or two sessions).

However, part of the point of this is to note how erratic the guidelines are in AD&D for XP from treasure. My experience is that it was far more significant than XP from monsters.

I am in full agreement with that last point. Monster XP in 1e is miniscule in comparison to XP for treasure unless the DM is very tight with treasure awards.

Your own experience with your group leveling up every 2-1/2 sessions is interesting. My current 1e game leveled at that pace for the first four levels. Since then things have slowed down considerably. We went four sessions before someone leveled up to level 5. I think that is because as I have stated earlier in the thread, sometimes treasure is hidden in a dungeon environment and if the PCs don't look in the right places, it can be overlooked and not claimed. Also, they have slogged through some lesser opponents and some relatively empty areas that have provided easier challenges where the opponents didn't have much in the way of treasure. And things that aren't portable wealth like a set of silver dishes don't net XP until the PCs take them and sell them to turn that into portable wealth.

If I wasn't giving XP for treasure in my Temple of Elemental Evil game, the PCs would probably still be level 2 or 3 at most. And on the first level of the Temple dungeons, they'd be slaughtered. There is something I like about giving XP for treasure though. It gives the party a sort of goal, to acquire wealth with the least amount of risk possible. Acquiring gold and magic items by circumventing the dangers guarding them (i.e. the monsters) is a good thing. Not having to fight, and perhaps risk a character death, but still getting XP for looting some treasure is cool, but I will admit that sort of focuses the game into a specific style that some might not care for.

 

[MerricB]

Of course, some 1e DMs might give xp for these sorts of things too.

In 2E, there were XP awards for spell-casting, thief ability use, etc., which I thought were purely part of 2E play, but I gained the impression from Gary Gygax that he used such measures as well - they just weren't ever written down anywhere "official".

Here's my conversation with him back in 2002 about that point (just scroll down): Q&A with Gary, part 1 and especially at the top of this page.

Your own experience with your group leveling up every 2-1/2 sessions is interesting. My current 1e game leveled at that pace for the first four levels. Since then things have slowed down considerably.

I'm going to be very interested to see the pace of advancement as the campaign continues; I'll keep posting reports (and we're mostly playing 1/week).

Back in the very early days of D&D, it was suggested that it takes a year (40-60 sessions) to reach level 9 (that's original D&D before AD&D), and then 2-3 levels are gained each year thereafter...

Cheers!