4E with 1E Feel: Does that appeal to you?

[Tewligan]

I haven't read most of the ideas in this thread. From what my players, Tom and Sarge, have said, 1st edition was very rules light. What can the character do? Well, whatever you can. The adventures were goofy and nutty and dangerous. It almost seems like people are confusing the "feel" of 1st edition with the "mechanics", or even the "feel of the mechanics".

Hm - I wouldn't call 1e "rules light" at all. I would, however, say that a lot of people handwaved or used simpler systems for some of the messier rules. I suggest you ask Sarge about 1e psionics, unarmed combat, or by the book initiative sometime!

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Hm - I wouldn't call 1e "rules light" at all. I would, however, say that a lot of people handwaved or used simpler systems for some of the messier rules. I suggest you ask Sarge about 1e psionics, unarmed combat, or by the book initiative sometime!

By the book init...omg. My head just exploded.

Also attack bonuses/penalties against armor types.

And we used to sit around all day sending assassins on Assassination attempts, just to roll on the percentage table.

In fact, one thing 3e really did - that 1e and I'm presuming 2e failed to do - is standardize the rules across the community. I'd venture a guess that all of us who did 1e had a fairly unique interpretation of 1e, and getting together with "other groups" may have introduced some awkward momements (e.g., "You don't use the init rules as written??!"

In 1e the DM really was the arbiter. Everything was guidelines. Most was confusing. All was interesting. 4e returns that power to the DM - not all of it, but a decent chunk. Time will tell if the community is able to handle that, or even enjoys that level of freedom. RPGs are different, obviously, than they were in the early 80s.

WP

 

[Engilbrand]

Ok. So the rules were ridiculous. Maybe even crap. So the "feel" wasn't in the mechanics. It was in the fact that most things were up to the DM as the arbiter, and the players were special. The DM could make up all sorts of crazy stuff, and the players got to interact with it.
How's 4th edition different? What can 4th edition really have added to it to change the "feel"?
This is a thread about Necromancer Games' ability to add in this feel. I'm still wondering how it's even an issue.

 

[mmadsen]

Ok. So the rules were ridiculous. Maybe even crap. So the "feel" wasn't in the mechanics. It was in the fact that most things were up to the DM as the arbiter, and the players were special.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the players were special."

The key to 1E's feel -- the good parts, at least -- was that the rules rarely intruded. In fact, most of the problems people complained about were with rules that contradicted what they wanted to happen -- e.g. characters could not die from a sword slash or spear thrust.

What can 4th edition really have added to it to change the "feel"?

4E obviously added lots and lots of rules, making combat into a very detailed and well-defined board game. Granted, much of this already happened in the move to 3E, and the not-so-detailed system of previous editions wasn't particularly good, but it was light and fast.

 

[Filcher]

Is it just me, or are there only 2 pictures up there when there should be 4? I'm curious about what the other 2 pictures should be.

I'm 25. Other than the older computer games, I started playing in college at the tail end of 3.0 and then a lot of 3.5. I currently DM for 2 guys who are about 40. I keep hearing from one of them, Sarge, that the 4th edition game is the closest thing to 1st edition that he's played, other than 1st edition. He loves how it has gone back to the basics, cleaned everything up, and gives a ton of options. I see these posts about 1st edition feel and how 4th edition doesn't have it, and then I think about Sarge's constant comments, and I am confused.

I also grew up reading the Salvatore Drizz't novels. As they're playing, things are happening like in the books. The heroes are interacting in an interesting way, they do a lot of cool things while manipulating their environments, and I, as DM, have a LOT of leeway to make up new and interesting things. The reinforcement that I'm getting from live people who played 1st edition is that this is the best system for mechanics, and the closest to 1st edition feel.

As a system, 4th edition requires imagination in a different way than 3rd edition. There's a wider margin for error when it comes to challenges. 1st edition "feel", I would guess, has to come from the DM, the things that they allow, and the things that they throw at the players. If I want a pillar to talk, I have the pillar talk. I don't need a super-specific spell in the book. The books already tell me that I can make up a lot of stuff, and there's a near infinite quantity of things in the game world that aren't in the books.
I have a series of villages with landmarks around them. One of them is a lake. At the first game, a player asked how large the lake was. My response: It's as large as it needs to be when it needs to have a size. Until that point, it's just a lake.

I guess my question is: What can Necromancer actually do that would give me a reason to change things? How can they make my players say that the game feels even MORE like 1st edition than it already does?
For the record: I've never played 1st edition. Everything that I've heard about it makes me NOT want to play it. I love 4th edition. My players love 1st. Somehow, what I hate about 1st, but love about 4th, seems to be what they also love about 4th. It's rather confusing to me.

I can't add anything more to the conversation, but to say that this post was telling, for me.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While I'm happy to listen to any opinions on this, I'm really looking for those folks who currently are NOT interested in 4E but potentially WOULD BE interested in 4E if it could capture a "1E feel" ala Necromancer's 3e products.

So you picked up 4e and thought "Not for me."

Would Necro's attempt - possibly - make you interested to give it a(nother) shot?

Nope- for me, 4Ed is the proverbial pig whose fundamental nature no amount of lipstick will alter.

 

[crash_beedo]

Hmmm... how to give 4E that 1E feel... 1st level wizards, I mean Magic-Users, that get killed by the house cat? Maybe we can add back in Weapon Speed Factors and weapon bonuses versus armor types? Psionics? Overbearing and grappling and percentage based unarmed combat? (Okay, got to get these giggles under control so I can keep typing...) Okay okay, I've got another one - those - Percentage-based morale rules. Spell component book-keeping and tracking! Training rules - that's it, monetary based training rules for leveling - Must! Come! Back! Bwahahahaha. System shock for Polymorph, Resurrection Failure! Demi-human level limits! Okay, I'll stop... you folks that enjoy those rules, you can have your sacred cows back.

Personally, I'd rather not roll back 30 years of progressive game system design. But - I do have constructive ideas - I love old school play, if not always the rules-set.

1. Mega-dungeon style play! Sprawling levels, wandering monsters, rival NPC parties, whimsical magical traps and 'Dungeonland' style side-excursions. T1-4, G1-3, D1-3 etc are still all-time favorite adventures. (YMMV, but Goodman proved with Castle Whiterock that even 3E could support this style play - I loved DMing Whiterock despite my dislike of 3E).

2. Challenging the players ...and not just the characters and their stats (said before by others, but well worth repeating).

3. "Gygaxian Ecology" - 1E MM was brilliant with all of its 60% chance of 2-12 carnivorous apes lairing with hobgoblins and stuff like that. My favorite MM by far.

4. Dangerous Wilderness: Implementing a wilderness encounter system where encounters are based on terrain and frequencies and not encounter level - in 1E D&D it was entirely possible for a low-level party on a wilderness trek to run into a dragon, based on the encounter charts. Too much of the 4E design philosophy is to be "fair" to the players. Um, no. They should know how to run once in a while.

5. Cursed Items: Cursed Items are notoriously absent, without (IMHO) sufficient justification by the designers.

6. Death-traps: I know 4E has limited save-or-die situations, but there still needs to be some obvious TPK situations (flee, flee everyone), slide-traps to lower levels of the dungeon, some 'nigh' unfair traps, and similar threats to keep the PC's honest.

4E is a simple system to DM and to create encounters and dungeons, in this way it "feels" much closer to 1E already from a DM's perspective (at least compared to 3E), but some of the ideas above would create more of that 1E feel in actual game-play.

 

[crash_beedo]

Ok. So the rules were ridiculous. Maybe even crap. So the "feel" wasn't in the mechanics. It was in the fact that most things were up to the DM as the arbiter, and the players were special. The DM could make up all sorts of crazy stuff, and the players got to interact with it.
How's 4th edition different? What can 4th edition really have added to it to change the "feel"?
This is a thread about Necromancer Games' ability to add in this feel. I'm still wondering how it's even an issue.

You really hit it - the 'old school feel' has more to do with DM style, DM philosophy, and the style of adventure than the rules set. Most of the 'signature' 1E rules were either blown off or house-ruled anyway.

The one area people keep coming back to is the Tome of Horrors, and I tend to agree that the 4E MM is a far cry from the 1E MM due to lack of fluff, "Gygaxian ecology", wilderness encounter tables based on terrain, random dungeon encounters, wandering monster tables, wandering NPC party generation, etc. There is a huge void there where a 3PP could backfill - although I doubt licensing could let them use the names of 4E monster manual monsters. Also, the extreme flexibility of the 4E encounter design/XP budget system and brute/soldier/artillery etc style of encounter design would make random tables difficult. Hmmm, a big book of encounters...

 

[ExploderWizard]

You really hit it - the 'old school feel' has more to do with DM style, DM philosophy, and the style of adventure than the rules set. Most of the 'signature' 1E rules were either blown off or house-ruled anyway.

The one area people keep coming back to is the Tome of Horrors, and I tend to agree that the 4E MM is a far cry from the 1E MM due to lack of fluff, "Gygaxian ecology", wilderness encounter tables based on terrain, random dungeon encounters, wandering monster tables, wandering NPC party generation, etc. There is a huge void there where a 3PP could backfill - although I doubt licensing could let them use the names of 4E monster manual monsters. Also, the extreme flexibility of the 4E encounter design/XP budget system and brute/soldier/artillery etc style of encounter design would make random tables difficult. Hmmm, a big book of encounters...

Thats kind of a problem that any 3pp will have with old school feel products for 4E. Encounters now have to "built" via a formula to ensure balance. Encounter tables that make sense for the area are kind of out of fashion. Old school design placed monsters where they were most likely to be found ( with some notable silly exceptions) and without regard to the power level of any adventureres that might be passing through.

 

[Umbran]

Old school design placed monsters where they were most likely to be found ( with some notable silly exceptions) and without regard to the power level of any adventureres that might be passing through.

In published adventures, I don't think that's true.

I think you might be confusing "old school" vs "new schoo" with status quo vs tailored deisgn.

A status quo design puts things where the DM feels they ought to be in the world, and if the group finds them, they find them - if they are sitll first level and go to the ancient red dragon's lair, that's their tough luck.

A tailored design fits the adventures to the party - the 1st level characters never run into any form of dragon, because there's no way they could handle the challenge.

Folks used both varieties of design back in the old days, so I don't think it is an old vs new difference.