My first edition of D&D was 2nd edition AD&D, and through the years I invested heavily in 3e, 4e, and now 5e (in addition to a myriad other systems, including non-fantasy RPGs.) My friend, who is a retroclone apologist, wanted to run a Labyrinth Lord game.
After rolling my character (even with the "4d6 drop the lowest" method), I came up with the worst imaginable array of ability scores: all 9-12 with no modifiers at all. Even one penalty score would've been preferable, as that would have at least given some flavor to the character.
My character is the frontline fighter, and rolled 2 hp. The weakest monster in the book could literally one-shot him.
Our cleric has one spell for the whole day. Our thief has (at best) around a 20% chance to do any thievery check - sneaking, opening a lock, disabling a trap, etc.
I get that the point is to avoid combat, but they don't even give the party tools to do that. No one has a reliable chance to hide. No one has the ability to throw spells that can befuddle groups of opponents. The fighters can't fight (or even survive). The only chance you have is to stay in the tavern and not even go on the adventure.
I'm wondering "where's the fun?" in OSR games like Labyrinth Lord/Swords and Wizardry?
After rolling my character (even with the "4d6 drop the lowest" method), I came up with the worst imaginable array of ability scores: all 9-12 with no modifiers at all. Even one penalty score would've been preferable, as that would have at least given some flavor to the character.
My character is the frontline fighter, and rolled 2 hp. The weakest monster in the book could literally one-shot him.
Our cleric has one spell for the whole day. Our thief has (at best) around a 20% chance to do any thievery check - sneaking, opening a lock, disabling a trap, etc.
I get that the point is to avoid combat, but they don't even give the party tools to do that. No one has a reliable chance to hide. No one has the ability to throw spells that can befuddle groups of opponents. The fighters can't fight (or even survive). The only chance you have is to stay in the tavern and not even go on the adventure.
I'm wondering "where's the fun?" in OSR games like Labyrinth Lord/Swords and Wizardry?