Raven Crowking
First Post
Or, as actually reading the Conan stories shows, particularly Conanesque.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/media-...jrrt-comparative-exploration-their-works.html
RC
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First Edition feel with 4E rules
- Thread starter Zelligars Apprentice
- Start date
Or, as actually reading the Conan stories shows, particularly Conanesque.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/media-...jrrt-comparative-exploration-their-works.html
RC
Aurumvorax
First Post
There's no way to accurately recreate the feeling of AD&D, OD&D, or BECMI in 4th edition. This isn't a knock on 4E, it's simply a manner of the game's functions. A couple of major points:
1) Meta-knowledge is obvious in 4E. You know a creature is a minion because he dies in 1 hit. You know what magic items do because the PHB lists them in their entirety and you can identify them in 5 minutes regardless. You know that your powers are always available and never fail. You know the results of a skill because the book clearly spells it out for you.
In earlier editions, the player finding out how the game world worked was half the challenge. You had spells with random durations, you weren't guaranteed full hit points, and there were many random variables (50% this happens or 5% that guy dies, etc.). To reinstate "old school" ideas you have to make the rules "mysterious" to the players again.
2) By default, 4E assumes the players are entitled to treasure and experience. It's assumed you run 10 encounters per level and hand out 10 treasures. It's assumed you generate a wish list and give items to players. It's assumed that everyone has +5 this and +3 that at Levels X. This is in the DMG and it's plastered everywhere.
In "old school" there was no entitlement. Treasure wasn't (or wasn't supposed to be) in plain sight or unguarded. There was no table saying "A level 5 fighter should at least have a +1 weapon." You earned experience primarily through roleplay and loot because slaying monsters always provided meager returns.
For example, in 4E a major quest (IE the equivalent of an entire adventure) counts as a single encounter which is, on average, 1/10 of your level. Using 2E as an example, story experience earned you relatively the same as every monster and trap's value combined. A 1HD monster only granted you 15xp. This is 1% of a thief's 1st level.
3) Action economy goes against the "balanced" encounters of earlier editions. Yes, by limiting actions you put characters on even ground. In AD&D your place in initiative could often make or break a battle. Spell casting was always risky because you could very well go dead last and have every single weapon flying your way.
Also, in older editions, the difficulty of a battle was determined more by overwhelming numbers than strength of the monster. 40 orcs could take down a level 9 party assuming they didn't have access to auto-kill magic like cloudkill (and that's a valuable spell slot wasted for such an occassion). At higher levels terrain played more importance in order to box creatures in and fight them one on one or, better yet, trap them with spells like fireball which conformed to its surroundings.
In 4E whoever acts the most flat out wins almost all the time. A party of 5 characters can wipe the floor with a solo even 5 levels higher than them purely through lockdown maneuvers (I haven't read MM3 but I hear they made monsters deadlier).
In combat, overwhelming numbers are limited by the self-imposed "balance" of the game. The concept of minions functions less as a means to overwhelm the party but as a means to get them to waste their actions or blow their area powers which are generally daily or encounter.
There are tons of other design changes with 4E but it's simply not compatible with "old school" methods. This isn't a negative thing, it's simply how the game was designed. As they say in the Essentials red box, you're a hero and heroes fight, not run/hide/let other people handle the work. You don't hire mercenaries to beaf your ranks or stop traps, you stop the traps. You don't age 5 years, lose a level, and become bald for resurrecting someone you're just a little tired until you level. You don't have to fear being disintegrated because you aimed your shiny new ring in your face because you automatically know the item after five minutes of fondling it.
People should really stop trying to change the game into something it's not. I'm in no way saying homebrew, flexibility, or thought exercises are bad or wastes of time, I'm saying that a game's rules define its style. The DM can change the rules to suit his purposes, true, but it doesn't change the fact that 4E is about heroes fighting monsters just like Mouse Guard is about frontier exploring mice, Dogs in the Vineyard is about religious knights snuffing out sin, and Maid is about playing an anime maid. What would Mouse Guard become if you turned it into a dungeon cralwer? Maybe it'd be fun, but you would have to change quite a bit of material to get there and it would simply be better playing an entirely different game.
Accept what 4E is or play a different game. I can't really put it any more succinctly than that. Feel free to make all the changes you want but in this man's opinion you're wasting your time better spent finding or designing a game meant to play your style from the ground up.
1) Meta-knowledge is obvious in 4E. You know a creature is a minion because he dies in 1 hit. You know what magic items do because the PHB lists them in their entirety and you can identify them in 5 minutes regardless. You know that your powers are always available and never fail. You know the results of a skill because the book clearly spells it out for you.
In earlier editions, the player finding out how the game world worked was half the challenge. You had spells with random durations, you weren't guaranteed full hit points, and there were many random variables (50% this happens or 5% that guy dies, etc.). To reinstate "old school" ideas you have to make the rules "mysterious" to the players again.
2) By default, 4E assumes the players are entitled to treasure and experience. It's assumed you run 10 encounters per level and hand out 10 treasures. It's assumed you generate a wish list and give items to players. It's assumed that everyone has +5 this and +3 that at Levels X. This is in the DMG and it's plastered everywhere.
In "old school" there was no entitlement. Treasure wasn't (or wasn't supposed to be) in plain sight or unguarded. There was no table saying "A level 5 fighter should at least have a +1 weapon." You earned experience primarily through roleplay and loot because slaying monsters always provided meager returns.
For example, in 4E a major quest (IE the equivalent of an entire adventure) counts as a single encounter which is, on average, 1/10 of your level. Using 2E as an example, story experience earned you relatively the same as every monster and trap's value combined. A 1HD monster only granted you 15xp. This is 1% of a thief's 1st level.
3) Action economy goes against the "balanced" encounters of earlier editions. Yes, by limiting actions you put characters on even ground. In AD&D your place in initiative could often make or break a battle. Spell casting was always risky because you could very well go dead last and have every single weapon flying your way.
Also, in older editions, the difficulty of a battle was determined more by overwhelming numbers than strength of the monster. 40 orcs could take down a level 9 party assuming they didn't have access to auto-kill magic like cloudkill (and that's a valuable spell slot wasted for such an occassion). At higher levels terrain played more importance in order to box creatures in and fight them one on one or, better yet, trap them with spells like fireball which conformed to its surroundings.
In 4E whoever acts the most flat out wins almost all the time. A party of 5 characters can wipe the floor with a solo even 5 levels higher than them purely through lockdown maneuvers (I haven't read MM3 but I hear they made monsters deadlier).
In combat, overwhelming numbers are limited by the self-imposed "balance" of the game. The concept of minions functions less as a means to overwhelm the party but as a means to get them to waste their actions or blow their area powers which are generally daily or encounter.
There are tons of other design changes with 4E but it's simply not compatible with "old school" methods. This isn't a negative thing, it's simply how the game was designed. As they say in the Essentials red box, you're a hero and heroes fight, not run/hide/let other people handle the work. You don't hire mercenaries to beaf your ranks or stop traps, you stop the traps. You don't age 5 years, lose a level, and become bald for resurrecting someone you're just a little tired until you level. You don't have to fear being disintegrated because you aimed your shiny new ring in your face because you automatically know the item after five minutes of fondling it.
People should really stop trying to change the game into something it's not. I'm in no way saying homebrew, flexibility, or thought exercises are bad or wastes of time, I'm saying that a game's rules define its style. The DM can change the rules to suit his purposes, true, but it doesn't change the fact that 4E is about heroes fighting monsters just like Mouse Guard is about frontier exploring mice, Dogs in the Vineyard is about religious knights snuffing out sin, and Maid is about playing an anime maid. What would Mouse Guard become if you turned it into a dungeon cralwer? Maybe it'd be fun, but you would have to change quite a bit of material to get there and it would simply be better playing an entirely different game.
Accept what 4E is or play a different game. I can't really put it any more succinctly than that. Feel free to make all the changes you want but in this man's opinion you're wasting your time better spent finding or designing a game meant to play your style from the ground up.
AngryMojo
First Post
I reject your premise. Feel isn't necessarily tied to mechanics.
Doing a 1e feel is easy, just do an adventure with the grimness/moral ambiguity/wackiness of 1e. Throw in some particularly deadly encounters, as well as traps that have a good chance of killing. Use a bunch of classic monsters, and always run encounters that are higher level than the PC's. I do this last bit generally, and I nearly kill off my entire party every session, I just don't finish them off.
Aurumvorax
First Post
And I reject this as a means of capturing the old school feel.
Old school is more than grimdark one-shot kills. If there's a difficult encounter in 4e the players can simply run and spend 24 hours to fully recover. Classic monsters are meaningless when they lack odd quirks and ridiculous powers of their originals. I can't very well say "You are bitten by the dire rat and die 1d4 weeks later. No, stop trying to roll a saving throw, you're dead." I can't say "The trap takes away half your health, sorry" because they'll counter with "I spend a healing surge." I can't pit my characters against 20 orcs then send in 20 more from the room next door because, holy crap, that battle would take FOREVER even if they were all minions whereas AD&D it would take maybe half an hour of exchanging die rolls until one side ran away or died.
The core mechanics of 4e go completely against the mechanics of AD&D. Players who expect to play a 4e game but are instead given faux 1e will either leave the table or just demand to play 1e. OSRIC is 99% 1e, Labyrinth Lord is 99% Basic/Expert, Dark Dungeons is 90% Rules Cyclopedia, Swords & Wizardry is 99% OD&D, and For Gold & Glory is 99% 2e (plug plug). Best thing is they're all free.
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I don't think the "feel" of 1st edition will ever be recaptured by a rpg. When I first got my AD&D PHB and DMG, back in '77, it was like a whole new world was opened up for me. It was new, it was original, it was complete. I loved it. I read the books over and over and reveled in their depth and possibilities, the idea of making a game world and populating it and letting others explore it was just so revolutionary. How is that "feel" ever going to be reattained?
Raven Crowking
First Post
I think you can approximate parts of a game system using another game system, and I certainly think you can kludge two or more systems together to get what you want from each.
RC
RC
clip
First Post
Agreed. The 1e "feel" is mainly one of nostalgia. You can't recreate that in 4e - which is for all intents and purposes a technical progression. 1e is about a lot of things - bad grammar, bad typesetting, terrible art. 1e (and I suppose 2e) were less a game than a loose set of systematic guideline "bricks", to which DMs filled in the gaps with a "mortar" of houserules. Its no exaggeration that no two groups played 1e the same.
4e, on the other hand is overwhelmingly played very close to RAW. The whole concept of CharOp relies on this. There are huge discussions and arguments over "playing by the rules" - no such thing would ever have happened in 1e.
The whole concept was new - take two fighters, a cleric, an MU and a thief - and run them down the Demonweb Pits, or Village of Hommlet or through Ravenloft. Low level MUs are nothing more than Panzerfausts. Clerics are healing bitches, and thief backstabbing is barely worth bothering with. All the cliches are actually features of the game.
Fast forward to 4e - and this is all gone. The game (D&D) is no longer new. The first forays into the unknown that many players experienced will never come back. Additionally, new players may have experienced a similar concept in computer games - certainly something that had nothing like the same sophistication in the days of AD&D.
Things have to change - consumers (players) will demand it. The hardcore of consumers have generally played several editions of the game, and you cannot simply re-issue the same modules over and again. Editions feel different because they have to - otherwise no-one would buy them.
AngryMojo
First Post
Right here is the basic problem with trying to capture anything involving an "old school" feel. Put quite simply, old school means something different to everyone who likes it. If you ask ten different "old school" gamers what "old school" means, you'll get ten different lists of criteria. As for indivudual points:
Characters running and recovering 24 hours later: People have recovered within 24 hours for decades, just the means of how have changed. Retreating and coming back when you're stronger was just as viable a tactic in 1e as it is in 4e.
Classic monsters lacking odd quirks and ridiculous powers: Really read the variuos monster manuals. Monsters have plenty of odd quirks and crazy powers now, and higher level monsters are still dangerous, just not instantly lethal (as you pointed out, instant lethality isn't what old school is about)
Bitten by the dire rat: Take a look at the disease rules in 4e. If you want to get nasty with them, go to town.
Trap takes away half your health: You complain about healing surges, how about having a trap take half of them away?
40 Orcs: I've actually run encounter very similar to that. They end pretty quick, usually with the PC's running away because they realize how nasty those kinds of numbers can be.
Pretty much everything you're describing is just "Up the difficulty," and that's not hard to do.
This is flat out wrong.
Take, for example, a first level fighter. The fighter is already beyond common soldiers as stated many times, many places. They were already titled. Kingdoms didn't have armies of even level-1 soldiers, they were common humans and 0-level scuds. a first-level fighter had more starting money, training and gear than most peasants would ever see in their lifetimes. And if they had even a single stat over 11, then they were also well above the curve.
AngryMojo
First Post
This is a lesson I learned in spades with Savage Worlds. I've used that system to run just about everything under the sun, including games that I was told "couldn't" be run with it. If you tilt your head just so when setting up a game, it's amazing what you can do by thinking outside the box.
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