Can someone explain what "1st ed feel" is?

[Psion]

Thus, dwarves, elves, and dragons aren't a problem. Windy corridors are.

The problem with your assumption is that you assume that someone dug them that way on purpose. I'm no geologist, but I do know that there is a lot of randomness in the way sedimation occurs; lava flows have bubbles in them, diffirent types of earth and rock are easier or harder to excavate or erode. Really, how a person would LIKE the passage to go may be an entirely peripheral consideration.

 

[Pielorinho]

The problem with your assumption is that you assume that someone dug them that way on purpose. I'm no geologist, but I do know that there is a lot of randomness in the way sedimation occurs; lava flows have bubbles in them, diffirent types of earth and rock are easier or harder to excavate or erode. Really, how a person would LIKE the passage to go may be an entirely peripheral consideration.

I don't think you need to be a geologist; I just think you need to know that D&D has spells like soften earth and stone, stone to mud, and stone shape in it. These spells don't care about which kinds of rock are easy or difficult to shape, but they do care about affected volume.

I think it's a case of people not really considering their imaginary objects carefully and how they'd be used. It may be possible to kluge together some excuse for the windy corridors -- but I don't like it when it's necessary to make excuses for weird things in adventures.

When I run a published adventure, I spend hours and hours reworking the illogical aspects of the adventure until I have something that makes sense to me, something in which all the NPCs have motives I can believe in, something in which all the monsters are placed logically.

It's important to me. I know it's not even important to all my players, but it's important to me.

Daniel

 

[WanderingMonster]

I always imagined first edition feel being kinda squishy and sweaty with a beard.

 

[Psion]

Re: Re: Re: Re: For me?

It's just that in the "early days" of AD&D, Drow were rare. When you ran into them in the G3 module, player were meant to be surprised + not sure what it was. Now, it seems every character knows what Drow are. If a DM describes a black-skinned elf, players know it's (probably) Drow, with certain abilities, etc.

Well, yeah. But there is precious little that churning out some new products is going to do about that. So of course the solution is to come up with more things that they can say "what's that" about. So I guess if that is the 1e feel you are looking for, you might have better luck buying the CC or CCII rather than an NG module.

Same could be said for Yuan-ti.

Actually, I don't know that many players that are too familiar with Yuan-Ti... except those who have played some of the BG titles.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Dungeon Crawls rule! I run a beer and pretzels game, I tried to run something else but my players don't want long drawn out scenarios where they do more talking and political maneuvering than slaying and trap finding. It's an adventure game where one makes ones name and fortune in the dungeon, or outside, battling monsters and coveting their treasure hordes.

 

[WSmith]

Clark's quote hits it on the head.

This is my 2 cents: to me, 1e ment location based adventuring. How the players got to the location was up to the DM. This was and is my style of DMing, so I can releate to it. How and why did the group travel from Reme to Faihill and then to Bard's Gate? Leave that part to me, and give me the locations along the way that I can use for them to encounter.

IMO, 2e adventures leaned in the direction of "Why are we out in widlerness, travelling to Waterdeep and who is the shadowy form following us, and what will happen if we don't return the totem to the barbarian tribe in time?" There is nothing wrong with this. I will say it again cause someone wants to get bent out of shape, I can tell. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS! BUT, it just doesn't mesh with the style of DMing I use when utilzing published adventures. Two notable exceptions from the 2e line, which I will never sell or give away, Vale of the Mage and Greyhawk Ruins. To me, they are location based.

That doesn't mean location based adventures don't have a story element, they don't emphisize it as much.

 

[kenjib]

DM: You enter a twenty by twenty room. Cobwebs hide the ceiling. There are some sacks of flour and a skull on the floor. All of you tell me what you do now.
Cleric: I light a torch and look at the webs on the ceiling.
Thief: I'm going to check out the sacks of flour.
Magic User: I'm going to look at the skull.
Fighter: I get ready with my two handed sword.
DM: Just as the cleric lights his torch something black and icky drops from the ceiling onto his shoulder. It tries to bite you but misses.
Cleric: Yikes! I grab it and throw it to the floor.
DM: Roll initiative first. Okay you win. Now roll to hit. Good you throw it on the ground. It's a giant spider!
Fighter: Eeew. I smash it with my sword!
DM: You hit the spider. Now roll for damage. 5 points - pretty good! It looks really hurt.
Magic User: I cast magic missile. 3 points of damage. Did I kill it?
DM: Yes you killed it.
Thief: Okay, what's in the sacks of flour. I cut them open with my dagger.
DM: Nothing. They are just sacks of flour.
Cleric: I'm going to set the webs on fire just in case there are more up there!
DM: Okay the webs burn easily.
Magic User: How about the skull.
DM: There is a gem in the skull worth 50 gp.
Fighter: Alright!!!

 

[WSmith]

Why stop there? Keep going with the the thief jumps into the water to grap the "bone tube' that got dislodged from the skelton's ribcage.

One of the things I loved the most about 1e/BD&D stuff were the in game descriptions, such as the one you mentioned.

Those were the days.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Back in the day...

Well, you certainly did not have every single fighter doing the two-weapon style elf with long swords.

One thing I STILL miss from 1st ed is that the illusionists were WAY different from M-U's. The spell lists were different, and when there were shared spells, their levels could be different too. Of course, no two DM's agreed on how illusions actually worked.

On the other hand, sorcerors and wizards are different in 3rd ed...

Each DM had a different interpretation on how illusions worked because like most of 1e, the rules were so poorly worded that the DMs were't sure how they worked either.

Tzarevitch

 

[Numion]

For me 1e feel is also that a city is just a big dungeon. Thats what we did anyway, in the days of past. Our adventurers were a menace to any city they visited. We just systematically knocked on doors or busted them in, just like in the dungeon. Or bought an empty house, and started digging tunnels to other houses. Or some other 'genious' plan.

For us 1e was about adventure without moral baggage, looting with no encumbrance and general mayhem and mischief.