OSR OSR Gripes

Umbran · Jul 11, 2019

Celebrim said:
Can't say that I agree with either the agent or his uncle. And to the extent that I'll charitably try to imagine that as a deep observation on the nature of love, then I don't think the quote means what you seem to think it means by using it in this context.

We're talking about how we pretend to be elves, Celebrim. Expect depth to match the topic.

Consider it less an observation of the nature of love, and more an observation of the nature of people, and it will probably be more functional for you.

Celebrim · Jul 11, 2019

the Jester said:
IIRC that particular character played through (on top of many homebrewed adventures) T1, the Slaver series, S3, S4 and WG4, and the GDQ series, probably not in that specific order. The massive giants encounter routed us, but we (mostly) survived and came back for more with better planning, though I can't remember what we did exactly.

Ok, that gives me a frame of reference.

The gas trap was an example; mass save or die effects were pretty common in early D&D, even if not that particular version. See also: gaze attacks from petrifying monsters or death gaze creatures (bodaks, boalisks, catoblepas, etc), the rooms full of radiation that force a save or die from everyone in S3, things like gas spores or yellow mold, etc.

Leaving aside passive hazards like yellow mold, which we were rightly paranoid about and used all sorts of techniques to avoid exposure... these happened all the time in your games? Because I can give a rant about how badly designed Bodaks are as monsters.

I think you're presuming a lot about the kinds of challenges we faced.

Possibly. Mostly I'm really interested in the kinds of challenges you faced.

We would just add more pcs, including potentially multiple pcs per player if needed.

Leveled up henchmen and other NPC associates were a convenient source of PC's should you unfortunately lose a main, and were often converted to PC's once your main got to the point you had invested so much you were sacred to risk them. This gradually developed an aesthetic of a living world we didn't have at first, when if a character died well you just rolled up a replacement and introduced him the next session as "Bob, Jr." or "Bob's younger brother" or whatever.

I think the refutation is aimed at your perception of what was viable. Were I to accept the premise that your character has to hit some or all of your bullet points from earlier, I'd be with you, but that simply wasn't my experience. I found all kinds of characters with relatively low arrays of stats to be viable. In fact, my first couple of years, we played 3d6 in order with 2-for-1 swaps (or 3-for-1, for certain stats) as outlined in... Mentzer(?) Basic, I believe. Characters were still fun to play and the game was still awesome. To me, that says that those characters were viable.

I don't have a problem with the assertion that a character with high stats is better, on the whole, than one with low stats. But I don't always think that means that character is more fun. And to me, what makes a character viable is a combination of two things: 1. Is it fun to play? and 2. Is it fun to play alongside?

What I noticed was an experience of fun decay where if you had a good character or if another player had a good character, then playing a substandard character - one that would never be capable like your good character - was increasingly less satisfying. When we were kids and first starting out, playing anything seemed pretty cool. We didn't question the rules much. It was how it was. If you had a bad character, well that was just the luck. Maybe you'd get lucky next time. However waiting for next time tends to become a bit of a drag.

That's not true, though- or at least, it's only true for Strength. A 15 Con gave you +1 to your hit points; a 15 Dex gave you +1 AC. And you are noticeably better as a spellcaster with a 13 Int or Wis than a 9. Then there are things like carrying capacity, system shock, reaction adjustment... You got, maybe not bonuses, but a better chance of many things going your way long before you hit 16.

+1 hit points for a M-U is like a 40% boost in h.p. +2 hit points is an 80%. The difference between 2 hit points and 3 hit points at 1st level isn't much - you are still in that 1d4 can kill you range. But the difference between 25 and 35 hit points at 3rd level is enormous. There is a 'squish point' defined by the average damage you'd expect to take if attacked by a monster you were likely to encounter that M-U's had a hard time getting beyond, which is one of the many reasons in 1e AD&D M-U's were never as godly as they were in 3e (when they got the same CON bonuses as a fighter and so had proportionately closer hit points). It's a lot easier to get beyond that squish point with 35 hit points than it is with 25. If you could get past that 1 round squish point, then by a combination of your own and party actions you were hard as a M-U to kill. So +1 or +2 turns out to be a very big deal in the long run. If you didn't have it, you were always going to be squishy.

The same sort of thing turns out to be true about DEX, though counter-intuitively not as much for the M-U as for other classes. You can't think about AD&D play like 3e play. In 3e play monsters have explicit strength scores and large bonuses to hit which means most things you'll encounter have chances to hit which are at least in the middle of the fortune range. So in 3e, a +1 to hit might mean you take ~5% less damage - 1 chance in 20 fails to hit you now. It's not a big deal. But in AD&D play, most things you encounter do not have explicit bonuses to hit. So it's relatively easy to bump your AC up into a range where the only hits you suffer are on the high end of the fortune range. And on the high end of the fortune range, that one extra bonus to AC becomes enormous. Instead of taking like 5% less damage, you are taking 25% or 33% or 50% less damage. Once you had the treasure to 'suit up' in plate mail (or later full plate), any character that could now was forcing those high ends of the range. And then at that point every AC bonus was gold, and every DEX bonus made you that much more survivable.

The reason it didn't matter as much for the M-U is that AC 9 versus AC 10 isn't as big of a deal as AC -1 versus AC 0. Again, middle of the fortune range or less plays very differently than top of the fortune range.

The same sort of thing is true about those system shock survival checks. Yes, it does matter that they are getting slowly better well before the top of the table. But a 99% SSS check isn't 1% better than 98%, but twice as good as 98% (1 in 50 chance) and 15 times as good as 85% (roughly 1 in 6 chance).

Speaking of different play experiences, I found that not having a high stat in 3e was far harder to deal with than in earlier editions.

We've been using point buy. I've had a few people go with stat arrays like 18, 18, 8, 8, 8, 8 but its much more typical to take a lot of 14's and such because there is a lot more MAD.

Tony Vargas · Jul 11, 2019

Ralif Redhammer said:
but there were also a ton of ways to bump up your stats through play. 5e codified it as part of progression, but back then there were all sorts of manuals, magic fountains, and the casting of wish/limited wish

Yep, lots of ways for stats to go up (or down), or straight to 18, 18/00 or 24 back in the day. Many of the most significant were magic items, almost all, like items, were things the DM would 'drop,' rarely something a player could acquire as a matter of course.

3e, not 5e, codified stat increases as part of progression, both through giving stat increases with level, and by setting out expected wealth/level which, along with make/buy of magic items, gave predictable access to all those stat-boosting items (all of which added to stats rather than replacing them as in the olden days).
4e did away with stat-boosting items (though it still had wealth/level & make/buy), and just had stat bumps as you level.

5e still gives stat bumps, but optionally, they can be sacrificed for feats. Stat-boosting and stat-replacing items are back, but also back under the DM's control, with wealth/level & make/buy expectations quashed. Closer to the classic game than anything else WotC's done, IMHO.

And heck, I remember a PC in my game that, without his gauntlets of ogre power, could not even move in his armor.

IIRC, the classic Gauntlets of Ogre Power only strengthened your arms & grip, so you were 18/00 for most critical purposes, like attack & damage, or bending bars or the like, but DMs might very well rule they didn't help much with encumbrance.

Lanefan · Jul 11, 2019

Celebrim said:
However, your favorite character would totally outclassed by one with two 17s or an 18 strength. I'm guessing that didn't happen (or you did actually have another score of 16 or higher). Your 11th level fighter only would have had about 47 hit points,

Er...only if it had a penalty due to a very low Con score.

An 11th level Fighter in 1e as written would have 9d10+6 h.p. The average on a d10 roll is 5.5; 9 of those gives 49 (rounding down) + 6 for a total of 55 h.p.

and that's not really viable for a front line character when you are facing off against level X monsters. If that same fighter had say a 16 Strength and also a 17 Constitution, so that they have say about 74 hit points, now we are talking.

And just how many Fighters made it all the way to 11th without dying once or twice? Remember, in 1e every revival ocst you a Con point...

Celebrim · Jul 11, 2019

Lanefan said:
Er...only if it had a penalty due to a very low Con score.

An 11th level Fighter in 1e as written would have 9d10+6 h.p. The average on a d10 roll is 5.5; 9 of those gives 49 (rounding down) + 6 for a total of 55 h.p.

Sorry, did math quickly in my head. Your math is correct. Point still stands however.

And just how many Fighters made it all the way to 11th without dying once or twice? Remember, in 1e every revival ocst you a Con point...

Many? I mean, you'd probably have to make it to 9th before you even had the option of a raise dead, and by the time you made it to 9th as a fighter you were fairly survivable. But, in so much as they did need a raise dead, then you're making a resurrection survival check in each case so how many times do you expect to survive getting raised if you start with low CON?

Lanefan · Jul 11, 2019

Ratskinner said:
Absolutely matches my experience. I know players that always seem to roll up an 18% STR Dwarf Fighter...every....single...time.

Rolled on the table in full view of everyone else?

I'll guess not.

I am often struck by the thought that random tables and generators are really the heart of some people's love of old-school. I've run enough Fate to know that using something like Inspiration Pad Pro to generate lists of names, monsters, sites, heck even plots and schemes can really help get the improvisation juices flowing. It also can really help in any game when the player's ask "What's his name?"

It goes beyond that - in old school much more so than new, there's always the underlying threat (or promise?) that some effect from some random table or randomly-generated device somewhere might completely change your character: alignment change, stat change, race or class change, etc.

Put another way, there's an overall greater level of unpredictability. Many of us find this a good thing.

Lanefan · Jul 11, 2019

Ralif Redhammer said:
Yep, and there are still tons of people like that out there. Drives me up a wall.

Not that we didn’t have our share of high stats we “rolled” back then (we were kids, after all), but there were also a ton of ways to bump up your stats through play. 5e codified it as part of progression, but back then there were all sorts of manuals, magic fountains, and the casting of wish/limited wish with the less, shall we say predatory, DMs.

Over the years I've had many wishes cast in my games and of those I can only remember one that was specifically cast to improve a stat...and even then only after a fashion: the character wished he was psionic.

But I've never had a problem with devices, tomes, etc. showing up that increase stats. It feels much more like an in-fiction reward for adventuring than any sort of auto-increment system ever does.

And heck, I remember a PC in my game that, without his gauntlets of ogre power, could not even move in his armor.

And with the Gauntlets, he could only move his arms?

Lanefan · Jul 11, 2019

Celebrim said:
Sorry, did math quickly in my head. Your math is correct. Point still stands however.

Many? I mean, you'd probably have to make it to 9th before you even had the option of a raise dead,

Not necessarily - I've had parties take their dead back to some major temple in town and pay for a raise way way WAY before they were anywhere near 9th level.

That said, getting access to raise in the field is very much a tipping point for long-term character survivability.

and by the time you made it to 9th as a fighter you were fairly survivable. But, in so much as they did need a raise dead, then you're making a resurrection survival check in each case so how many times do you expect to survive getting raised if you start with low CON?

Yes, but your example was of someone with Con 17, which is a high-90's resurrection chance.

Tony Vargas · Jul 11, 2019

Lanefan said:
It goes beyond that - in old school much more so than new, there's always the underlying threat (or promise?) that some effect from some random table or randomly-generated device somewhere might completely change your character: alignment change, stat change, race or class change, etc

Nod. Like landing on "Go to Jail" or "Loose a Turn" in a board game. Just, arbitrarily, stuff happens. (I'm kinda surprised there aren't more funny stories about Reincarnated old-school D&D characters.)

Characters weren't sacrosanct, they didn't /start/ with concepts, but they might come to embody one for part of their career, depending on what the DM had dropped on them.

the Jester · Jul 12, 2019

Celebrim said:
Leaving aside passive hazards like yellow mold, which we were rightly paranoid about and used all sorts of techniques to avoid exposure... these happened all the time in your games? Because I can give a rant about how badly designed Bodaks are as monsters.

Fairly often. Most adventures had an instance of something like this in it somewhere, much like early modules did. It wasn't an every session thing, but was far from uncommon.

Celebrim said:
Leveled up henchmen and other NPC associates were a convenient source of PC's should you unfortunately lose a main, and were often converted to PC's once your main got to the point you had invested so much you were sacred to risk them. This gradually developed an aesthetic of a living world we didn't have at first, when if a character died well you just rolled up a replacement and introduced him the next session as "Bob, Jr." or "Bob's younger brother" or whatever.

We typically had many different games running concurrently, and would swap pcs in to different groups when it fit the narrative, such as when one group finished a given adventure. All pcs started at first level for us except for in the strangest, least usual of circumstances, so we always had more low level pcs available than higher level (we would start new pc groups all the time).

Celebrim said:
What I noticed was an experience of fun decay where if you had a good character or if another player had a good character, then playing a substandard character - one that would never be capable like your good character - was increasingly less satisfying.

I'm sure I had dissatisfying characters, but the only one I especially remember was a ranger who... he just come off as a wanker when I started playing him. To me, I mean. I was actually glad when he died early on. Generally, though, I find every character I play enjoyable.

My first 5e pc is a wizard who started with a high score of 14... in Con. His starting Int was 13. (This is because I usually roll my stats in order and see what I can make, a very old habit.) He was amazingly fun, and was a great asset to his party- just an atypical one. He's a self-described mediocre mage, but he is really fun to play with and the others in his party really like him too.