First Edition feel with 4E rules

[Lanefan]

Balance is to keep the game flowing in a clear direction. As much as I like AD&D, it's lack of clear guidelines on treasure and experience lead to the famous Monty Haul sessions or players being of vastly varying power. If you ignore the rules then your game will fall apart. That last statement is based on personal experience but I have yet to play a single D&D game where more than a handful of house rules didn't turn into an absolute mess.

The number of games that go from level 1 to 30 is disproportionately less than games that end after a few levels. This could be attributed to a number of reasons but I can guarantee you that people who rewrite the game find their campaigns ending a lot sooner than those that don't.

We-ell, my three houseruled-into-oblivion 1e campaigns lasted 10 years, 11.5 years, and gawd-only-knows-how-many years (2.5 so far and just nicely rounding into form); if that's not long enough to meet standard please let me know.

I've come to believe that if we treat the rules in one extremely key way then our games will be better for it: that all involved play by the spirit of the rules rather than the letter.

If you're a player who is always looking for the loophole or the broken combo then sure, you'll almost certainly find it. But in doing so, you've just made the game a little less fun than it was. So don't.

Lanefan

 

[Aurumvorax]

I'm happy it worked out for you, or rather I should say I'm happy your players worked out for you. My experience with players in a heavy house ruled game has been one of cautious optimism followed by ambivalence once they get about 3 sessions in and suddenly the game turns out not how they imagined.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm happy it worked out for you, or rather I should say I'm happy your players worked out for you. My experience with players in a heavy house ruled game has been one of cautious optimism followed by ambivalence once they get about 3 sessions in and suddenly the game turns out not how they imagined.

Probably depends how much experience with other games said players had before coming into yours. Best to tell 'em to expect a fun and playable game but to check their previous rules knowledge at the door, then start from scratch.

If they're used to 3e by the book, for example, they're probably less likely to accept a homebrew 3.25e version than a bunch of new players for whom that *is* the game as they know no other way. (conversely, players who only know the 3.25 version might not get along with 3e RAW)

Lanefan

 

[Doug McCrae]

I was assuming that a "reasonable" amount of house-ruling would be required to achieve the goal. I just wanted to see if it could be done without completely rewriting the game from the ground up.

In that case -

1. XP mostly for gold, not monsters. 80%+ of xp should be from gold.
2. Follow the 1e, and OD&D, advice for treasure placement - a few big hoards, well concealed, probably behind secret doors and/or traps. Small stuff easier to find, like orcs carry 5gp each for example.
3. No magic item shops.
4. Use training costs as a gp sink.
5. Time is a resource. Keep careful track of time, both inside the dungeon and during the campaign. Movement in the dungeon is slow.
6. The world contains a plethora of monsters, of a bewildering variety.
7. Use wandering monsters, which should probably be minions, and carry no treasure. Use wandering monsters as a punishment for player behaviour you dislike.
8. Be passive-aggressive. If you have a problem with the players, do not discuss it with them. Instead use the game world to punish them. If a player wants to play a monster, and you don't like the idea, don't say no, rather have lots of bad things happen to his monster PC. If the players are being very cautious, and you find it boring, do NOT tell them you are bored, use ear-seekers and the like.
9. Fudge dice rolls to save the PCs of the players you like, but not the ones you don't like.
10. Roll for it. Use lots of tables from 1e, such as potion miscibility. Sometimes ignore the results.

Other features of 1e such as Save or Die, quick character creation, and large parties with lots of henchmen, are harder to achieve within the 4e rules. It might be possible to use minion henchmen and I think the character builder allows for pretty fast PC creation.

Nonetheless, 1-4 alone, which are very easy house rules will, I think, go a long way to recreating a 1e feel. Add 5-7 and you're well on your way.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Another distinctive feature of 1e, not found in d20 D&D, is the change in the game at name level when the PCs become rulers. Like mega-dungeons, this is something that is more pronounced in OD&D but in 1e it's still present, a holdover from the game's roots in Chainmail.

In Chainmail the game becomes a wargame at name level, with the PCs as the commanders on the battlefield in the Tolkien-esque showdown of good vs evil, or Moorcockian law vs chaos, but the battles are on the Tolkien scale - nation-shattering rather than world-shattering.

1e is not quite as extreme - the PCs become rulers, build castles, clear their fief of monsters and, perhaps, lead their troops into war, but they still dungeon delve, using the men from the fief as a resource.

4e doesn't have any rules for this, so they would have to be imported from 1e and perhaps Chainmail. I would suggest that in 4e, this change occurs at Paragon tier, level 11.