D&D 1E Thinking of bringing my 1e AD&D DMG to my 4e game.

[Jacob Marley]

Go for it. My 1st Edition DMG is one of two books I carry with me regardless of what edition I am playing. The book has too much useful information not to. (The other book is a Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe.)

Yeah, but I bet you'll be fudging that thing left and right, trust me... It never worked.

This depends on how you view an encounter, I suppose. For me, an encounter means a lot more than combat. An encounter with a goblin patrol may be nothing more than the shredded remains of a dozen corpses. An encounter with a red dragon my be a pile of steaming dung. I like my encounters to add flavor to the world as well as the occasional combat.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, but I bet you'll be fudging that thing left and right, trust me... It never worked.

Can you be a bit more specific? Back in my original 1e days I normally used the Monster Manual 2 "d8+d12" tables, so I don't have much experience with the DMG % ones. Is there some terrible flaw in them I should be aware of?

They don't have "# appearing" (except the town table & the dungeon tables), but I can improv that based on the monsters' 4e role - eg if it's a standard monster in 4e then 5, or say 3-8 (d6+2) would seem right, typically.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I guess this is just too funny to save for 4/1/2012...

 

[On Puget Sound]

I've been bringing RoboRally mapboards and Gamma World weapon cards to my 4e game lately, so no, the 1e DMG doesn't seem out of place at all.

 

[Pentius]

I was wondering if anyone else does this? Am I crazy?

I do this sometimes. You are almost certainly crazy.

A mad man with a book, if you will.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHD0iTeJDgQ]yep[/ame]

 

[KarinsDad]

OTOH I don't recall ever using random treasure or pure random encounters even back in the day. It sounds fun, but you quickly find you have to fudge it so hard to keep things on the rails that it isn't really worth bothering with IMHO.

Actually, you do have to change the 1E tables to 4E tables, but you don't have to fudge the rolls and results themselves.

In the 4E world, the table would be limited to level+4. It could even go lower than level+1. Who says that a 10th level adventurer couldn't find a +1 dagger? That makes the world more believable. If using the inherent bonus rules, this works out even better.

The entitlement concept that players are not having fun unless they find the exact magical items that they put on a wish list is total nonsense. The items just have to be in some reasonable ballpark. For example, if no PC is wearing plate armor, then remove plate armor from the 4E random tables being used.

 

[MrBeens]

Can you be a bit more specific? Back in my original 1e days I normally used the Monster Manual 2 "d8+d12" tables, so I don't have much experience with the DMG % ones. Is there some terrible flaw in them I should be aware of?

They don't have "# appearing" (except the town table & the dungeon tables), but I can improv that based on the monsters' 4e role - eg if it's a standard monster in 4e then 5, or say 3-8 (d6+2) would seem right, typically.

If he is anything like me, I used to roll on the old random tables (treasure, encounters, what have you) invariably didn't like the result, re rolled, wasn't that keen on the re roll, so swapped the rolled +2 sword for a +2 hammer etc.
I just use tables as a starting point or as a list of inspirations.

 

[Tanstaafl_au]

My DMG is just part of my 'kit'.
I hardly reference books during play, but if I ever need to generate a twisted creature from the lower planes of chaos, it's there for me.

 

[Ranes]

My DMG is just part of my 'kit'.
I hardly reference books during play, but if I ever need to generate a twisted creature from the lower planes of chaos, it's there for me.

If you're the Tanstaafl I think you are, you never brought your 1e DMG to one of the games I played with you. But then you never seemed to need a twisted creature from the lower planes of chaos.

Apologies if you never used to play at the London Meetup...

 

[Tanstaafl_au]

If you're the Tanstaafl I think you are, you never brought your 1e DMG to one of the games I played with you. But then you never seemed to need a twisted creature from the lower planes of chaos.

Apologies if you never used to play at the London Meetup...

I am not tha Tanstaafl you are looking for /kenobi

I'm aussie, and haven't yet been to London.