What is the best game to capture that old 1E AD&D feel? - Please state why.

[Mycanid]

To get the 1E feel again, I would have to wipe my brain of all I have learned since High School and efectively re-live my life. It was my first RPG, and I don't think you can get that again.

For the next best thing, I would need a totally new game, that I had never read or heard about from friends, family or the net. Then I could get the exploration feel that to me was the biggest part of 1E. Explorignthe magic system, the classes, the world, all of it. To me, that newness was 1E.

I know exACTly what you are saying here sir ... but I must admit that I have to disagree. The "newness" of a thing does not depend solely on an absence of familiarity. There are plenty of people who experience all sorts of things and have the same freshness and feel to a thing as when they first tried it out. And this applies both to gaming and many, many other aspects of life.

Admittedly this is one of my "standard rants" ... I am convinced that one can keep the disposition of newness and freshness alive in all one's activities while at the same time growing and changing and experiencing such activities in a different way as the years go by.

Yes - some game systems have more percentage wise that could "haze-ify" the things that make the gaming experience what they were when the glow of "first love" was upon one. But the main factor in all this is US ... it is something in US that has "grown old". Nor am I saying that every single gaming experience should be a peak experience!

But the quality of it CAN be raised as a standard reference point by out attitudes and what not outside of the gaming sessions towards gaming and other things in general. I've seen many people do it.

 

[rgard]

I've come to the realization that 3.5E just isn't doing it for me anymore. The never ending books of additional feats and basic classes are just one of my gripes. I also just don't have time to create NPC parties and advanced monsters.
Anyway, two titles have come to mind for me to jump into to recapture that old feel... Castles & Crusades and Hackmaster. If there are any others out there feel free to post them too. I've still got quite a bit 1e and 2e stuff but as it is no longer in print I'd rather not expose those books to damage over the course of regular game play. I pretty much hang on to them for nostalgia value.

First find a mad scientist who will erase all your memory of ever playing an rpg. Then start playing 1e.

Seriously, that feeling you are missing probably won't ever return. It's part of who you were when you first played and has changed you and your perceptions as they are now.

I honestly believe that someday we'll be reading notes like this from folks fed up with 7.5e wishing for the feel of 3.5e.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[tx7321]

Posted:

Anyway, two titles have come to mind for me to jump into to recapture that old feel... Castles & Crusades and Hackmaster.

Well, the game that best captures the AD&D1 feel besides AD&D1 is OSRIC (written to reproduce it as close to 100% as possible). If you haven't yet downloaded it and given it a read you should.

Here is the OSRIC link provided by Mythmere above. I don't know where you can buy the book in print, but it would be great to have because it is fresh material.

http://knights-n-knaves.com/osric/index.html[/url]

 

[RFisher]

I voted other.

• oAD&D. If you don't have the originals, pick them up second-hand or buy the PDFs.
• OSRIC
• classic D&D. Again: originals, second-hand, or PDF
• Basic Fantasy
• Mazes & Minotaurs
• Dungeon Squad

Beware: I have only proved those suggestions to have old school feel, I haven't actually tested them all. (^_^) (Sorry, it's a programmer joke.)

I remember seeing a Gurps Lite based D&Dish game someone made that I was pretty impressed by. There are probably others, but those are the ones that sprang to mind.

Why? ...oh, all right...

I don't want any of the stuff HM adds, & my oAD&D books are right there on the shelf waiting for me to use them again.

To run a C&C game, I find myself having to supplement it with oAD&D or classic D&D, so I might as well stick with the original games. (There's more to it than that, but I really don't want to get into criticising C&C any further.) & my classic D&D booklets are not right there on the shelf because they're in the dining room waiting for game day.

Dungeon Squad is pure 24-hour genius.

 

[tx7321]

Umbran stated: Having seen more and more of these threads, I just want to insert - games have more than one feel. The same set of books can generate a remarkably broad set of experiences, when played by different people, different assumptions, and different goals.


TRUE BUT...
each game (C&C, Hackmaster, 3E, OSRIC/AD&D1 etc.) produces a general catagory of experiances unique to that game (and those qualities are what set them apart). If you follow the rules, the experiance each player and sets of players have should be roughly the same (think of a bigger circle with dots all falling within that ciricle. The circle is the game, the dots the experiances. No 2 dots perfectly match up. But all are in the circle of the game.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

I honestly believe that someday we'll be reading notes like this from folks fed up with 7.5e wishing for the feel of 3.5e.

And at the rate WotC is putting out new editions, that will probably be in 4-5 years from now.

 

[Harlekin]

3.5

What you consider 1st edition feel is just a certain mindset when designing adventures and when playing . It involves the willingness of the DM to play fast and loose with the rules of the game and the rules of logic.

3.5 is the best iteration of D&D to play under this mindset.

 

[mmadsen]

I've come to the realization that 3.5E just isn't doing it for me anymore. The never ending books of additional feats and basic classes are just one of my gripes. I also just don't have time to create NPC parties and advanced monsters.

Anyway, two titles have come to mind for me to jump into to recapture that old feel...

It sounds like your goal is to find a lighter ruleset, so you can play with less prep. If that's the case, I recommend Savage Worlds, which was designed specifically to reduce prep time. Its unofficial Advanced Dungeons and Savages supplement provides rules for mimicking AD&D. You might also consider True20, which is "lighter" than D&D 3.5E but still similar.

 

[ghul]

What you consider 1st edition feel is just a certain mindset when designing adventures and when playing . It involves the willingness of the DM to play fast and loose with the rules of the game and the rules of logic.

3.5 is the best iteration of D&D to play under this mindset.

Respectfully, I must disagree with your statement, having found the 3.5 game to be antithetical and counterintuitive to running a game that has "1st edition feel." I feel this way, because I have tried such and consequently reached this conclusion after five years, and I am, for what it's worth, a DM of 26 years experience.

And while I applaud the efforts of Necromancer and Goodman Games, I believe their works are somewhat hindered by 3e mechanics and, if translated to 1e, 2e, or C&C, would make for better gaming -- IMHO, of course.

I must also disagree with your blanket assesment (rather, pretense) of 1e feel being "...willingness of the DM to play fast and loose with the rules of the game and the rules of logic." While I would not disparage those who run 3.x editon games (again, I did so myself for five years), I do feel that in answer to the OP, options outside of that system should be considered if seeking to "..capture that old 1e AD&D feel."

Personally, I left the 3.x game about a year ago and have since been running a hybrid of C&C and AD&D 1e. I am having fun running it, my group is having fun playing it. It is a brief escape once per week from the RL.

Cheers!
--Ghul

 

[Remathilis]

Skip that hobbled, knocked together mess that is 1e.

http://paizo.com/store/downloads/wizardsOfTheCoast/classicDAndD/rulebooks/v5748btpy7mvs

Don't like PDFs? Ebay has a couple copies.

You WON'T be disappointed.