Running a session of Basic D&D -- my game group's experience

[S'mon]

I am absolutely certain that someone, sometime, somewhere has had a fun, engaging and exciting D&D experience centered around a maze. I am not, nor have I ever met, that person.

I've tried it as a DM, but it never comes off right.

My hatred of mazes dates right back to my very first fantasy gaming experience - 10/11 years old, and playing the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook, Warlock of Firetop Mountain. You have this fun dungeon crawl, you've completed most of it and are getting close to the Warlock, when... *ding!* - a maze! Cue frustration, annoyance, and an experience that could easily have turned me off fantasy gaming right at the start.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, searching a picture could easily take several minutes as you poke, prod, look at, finally touch and move, then remove from the wall, probing behind the picture etc etc etc. A desk with a few drawers could take even longer.

At least, that's what I've been emphatically assured is the requirement for old school gaming.

Can you point to the posts, so we can see?

I think you are mischaracterizing (or misunderstanding) arguments here.


RC

 

[Bullgrit]

It has been brought to my attention numerous times that the quintessential part of the "old school" experience is the fact that you absolutely cannot skip over the details. That's new school gaming. If you come into a room with a desk, a fireplace and some painting on the wall, you have to take each element individually, explaining in exacting detail precisely what your characters are doing to examine/search each of these elements.

So, searching a picture could easily take several minutes as you poke, prod, look at, finally touch and move, then remove from the wall, probing behind the picture etc etc etc. A desk with a few drawers could take even longer.

At least, that's what I've been emphatically assured is the requirement for old school gaming.

Yep. It’s been stated many times that rolling dice for a search is “new school,” (it challenges the character), whereas having the Players exactly describe what and how they search is “old school,” (it challenges the Player).

Reference a recent thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/270458-silver-baton-torch-stub-t1.html
Specific posts in that thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...8-silver-baton-torch-stub-t1.html#post5055019
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...8-silver-baton-torch-stub-t1.html#post5055031

And I’ve never disagreed with this concept, this qualification of “new school” vs. “old school”. (Although I have disagreed with some over which was actually the better method.) This is a difference I’ve always seen with older vs. newer editions of the game. In my experiences playing classic D&D during the era of classic D&D, it was always expected that the Players describe their searches. There were no die rolls for a search unless the module specifically gave such a rule for a certain instance. Something like, “If the party searches the statue, they have a 50% chance of noticing X.”

I would never normally spend a long time on searching a single location. If they say "We search" I'd roll some dice to see if they found the hidden stuff. If they say they search a specific location where something is hidden, they find it unless maybe the writer says different. I'll make clear when it's time to move on. I keep things moving, I don't want me or them getting bored.

Well, first off, rolling a die to search for treasure is a house rule to BD&D. Good or bad idea, it’s not in the rules as written. The only things the rules mention rolling for a search are secret doors and traps – and you specifically have to be looking in the right place to even get the roll. If you base a roll-to-search-for-treasure house rule on those written rules, (rolling a 1 on 1d6), finding the treasure is more based on pure luck than on Player skill or even character skill. (And what even moderately greedy Player is going to leave finding gp and xp up to a 1 in 6 chance?)

But even if a good house rule could be created, I was running this BD&D game session strictly on the rules as written. (Granted, I did “houserule” that troglodyte attack so as to avoid killing another PC. This probably makes me a wuss DM. Had I instituted any house rules for this run, I’m sure people would be coming in this thread to tell me how I ran the game wrong, and thereby didn’t give my Players a true classic BD&D experience.

As for how long we played vs. how much of the dungeon they covered: Again, had they gone to a more room-populated area of the dungeon (rather than the maze of corridors), they probably would have explored more rooms. The southwestern part of the dungeon has just 3 numbered areas. Compare to the southeastern part of the dungeon – 12 rooms!

Maybe my group has more non-game table talk. Maybe my group is just generally slower. I didn’t feel that we were wasting a lot of time, or going particularly slow. I mean, we only played the dungeon for about 3 hours. (And remember, they spent some of that time restocking between forays, and rolling up two new PCs to replace dead ones.) We could have squeezed another hour of play time in by starting earlier, or playing later. I could have had the Players generate their characters before the game session, but I felt that creating the characters at the table is part of the classic D&D play experience.

This one-game-session experience has taught me a valuable lesson about any RPG: You can’t get a full feel for the game with just one game session. You can’t get a full feel of even just a single adventure with just one game session. I really should have gotten everyone’s agreement to play the full dungeon, and not just one game session. But this was at least the third time I’ve offered to run this BD&D game to this group – I was happy to at last get agreement on one game session.

As for mazes in dungeons – I agree with the consensus here: they usually aren’t a good idea, or usually aren’t designed very well. It’s a wonder, though, that so many published classic D&D modules had mazes of one sort or another. (How long before someone takes issue with this claim that many classic D&D modules had mazes?)

no wonder they're looking at 4e as a new option.

The idea to give D&D4 a try had nothing to do with us giving BD&D a try (with good or bad result). No more than our giving Alternaty a try had anything to do with our giving Star Wars d6 a try, or giving Paranoia a try had anything to do with giving Marvel Super Heroes a try. We regularly try new games, and new editions of games. We’ve talked about trying D&D4 for a long while, but I said I wasn’t willing to run it myself – I wasn’t interested enough in it to learn it enough to run a game. One of the other players in our group has offered to DM an adventure.

Bullgrit

 

[Bullgrit]

The itch to go 'by the book' mentioned earlier is lost on me. That's like saying some genius designer dispenses perfect wisdom from the fount of WoTC or whoever, and that we mortals should accept their pearls of wisdom without question. Even if the whole session tanks, because in reality the rushed designer had a couple of beers the night before and didn't get the balance quite right before the midday deadline.

So you introduce people to new games with house rules first, before letting them (and you) see what experience the rules as written give?

You picture game designers as drunks running behind on their schedule, rather than as professionals who give thought and test to their ideas?

Interesting.

(And WotC didn't exist as even a glimmer of an idea when BD&D was designed.)

Bullgrit

 

[Clavis]

As a DM, my experience has been the opposite of the OP's. I was part of a weekly 4th Edition group at my FLGS (which is unfortunately closed as of today). As an occasional side game I suggested running an "Old School Sunday" once a month using Classic D&D (in its Rules Cyclopedia incarnation). I though nobody would be interested but the 30+crowd. Flash forward a year and the 4th Edition campaign basically had died out (there were occasional one-offs), with Classic being the form of D&D mostly played at the store (there was also a successful Call of Cthulhu campaign). And this with a large group that was mostly under 25, the demographic that is supposedly raised on video games and wants a 4th Edition style game.

I think preferred game style is just a matter of taste, and that the taste is not predictable. After all, the new Classic gamers I'm talking about have no nostalgia for the 80s, love Anime, and are video gamers. All of those things should supposedly have made them want to play 4th Edition over an older edition. The OP seems to have had the experience of some older players being dissatisfied with an Old School Game. I'm not surprised. Looking at my old Dragon magazines from the 80's I see letters expressing dissatisfaction with the elements now considered essential for "Old School Gaming". Even back then then were people who wanted a game more like the recent incarnations of D&D. In the same way, today there are people who prefer a Neo-Old School style of play.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yep. It’s been stated many times that rolling dice for a search is “new school,” (it challenges the character), whereas having the Players exactly describe what and how they search is “old school,” (it challenges the Player).

Reference a recent thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/270458-silver-baton-torch-stub-t1.html
Specific posts in that thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...8-silver-baton-torch-stub-t1.html#post5055019
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...8-silver-baton-torch-stub-t1.html#post5055031

Thank you for the examples. They demonstrate pretty well what I mean by mischaracterizing (or misunderstanding) arguments here. Indeed, the idea that some investure = pixel bitching ("explaining in exacting detail precisely what your characters are doing") is specifically decried in one of the posts you example as suggesting that this sort of behaviour is mandatory!

Example:

LC: "Everybody will do what we set out to do in the first place. If nothing valuable of interesting is in the sacks, the cleric will then help the magic-user search the refuse and burn the webs overhead in case there are an more spiders hiding up there."

DM: "The sacks hold rotten grain, so the cleric will go and help the magic-user as ordered. They find the refuse consists of castings, some husks of small victims of the spider, hide, bones, a small humanoid skull, and 19 silver pieces. Do you now fire the webs overhead?"

LC: "Examine the skull first. What kind of humanoid was it? Can we tell?"

DM: "Possibly a goblin. When you are looking at it more closely, you see that there is a small gem inside -- a garnet."

LC: "That's more like it! Put it safely in your pouch, along with the silver pieces, Good Cleric, and light the spiderweb."

DM: "The strands burn quickly, flame running along each and lighting others touched. You see several young spiders crisped as the mass of webs near the top of the chamber catches fire."

LC: "That's that. What is seen down the three corridors leading out of the place?"​

That should take how long in actual play? Two minutes? Five?

It is contrasted with

DM: No problem, then. You feel fine. Looking at the pile of debris, you'd guess it's probably refuse from the spider - leftovers of its victims and its own castings. Amid bits of bone and tatters of clothing, you find 19 silver pieces. And make a Search roll.

Mialee rolls a 9 and adds her +6 bonus for a result of 15 -- just enough to notice the hidden gem!

DM: You also see something sparkle inside a small skull. Looking closer, you see it's a gem -- a garnet.​

The first requires input from the player beyond the obvious, whereas the second requires a die roll. The player's realization that identifying the skull might give them a clue to future encounters is rewarded by finding the garnet.

Neither one takes much more time than the other.

The big difference in time spent during the adventure should be that AD&D combat goes far faster than 3e combat; the AD&D characters should get far more "game" done than the 3e characters.

Another big difference is that, in the 3e example, the DM tells the player to make a Search roll, thus alerting the players to keep looking until they roll high. Or to just take 20. Clearly, the 3e players are going to recover far more treasure (if the game is played as the respective DMGs example) than the AD&D characters, and with far less effort.

The 3e characters can also Appraise the treasure on-site, if they so desire. The only reason, in the example, that Mialee does not is that they want to burn the webs overhead.


RC

 

[Bullgrit]

The OP seems to have had the experience of some older player being dissatisfied an Old School Game.

The thing that will haunt me forever about this game session is the bad luck of the PCs heading into the "maze area" of the dungeon first. I fear they came out of this game session not interested or enticed for more BD&D gaming because they only experienced that one [weak] part of the dungeon.

This will bug me for the rest of my gaming life. I feel that I failed the game by letting the game run as it is "supposed" to (open fully to Player choice and random chance), but we stopped before it ran its full, glorious course.

Sort of like taking a kid to a sports game for the first time. If the first few minutes are boring, filled with fouls that slow/stop play, and then it's time to take the kid home, the kid may not build any interest in ever going to another such game.

Bullgrit

 

[Chainsaw]

Had I instituted any house rules for this run, I’m sure people would be coming in this thread to tell me how I ran the game wrong, and thereby didn’t give my Players a true classic BD&D experience.

Probably depends on the rule and the intent of the change, right? I think plenty of people back then (and now) played home campaigns of the old games with house rules (and not always because it was perceived to be 'broken') - but if your house rule was essentially an attempt to accommodate participant desire (yours or theirs) for something more like 3x/4x, then yeah, probably people would have been critical of the effort (why not just play one of those games?).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Actually, that bit Chainsaw quoted makes one wonder what the motive for this game was. Was it to give his Players a true classic BD&D experience, or to convince people on this thread that he had done so?

If the former, what difference does it make what folks on this thread think? If the latter, what is the purpose of doing so? Characterizing the game events as extraordinary "bad luck" doesn't really demonstrate anyting about what an OS experience is like or should be like.

Certainly, Bullgrit used a 3.x-ism with one encounter, and not only did no one complain, but at least one poster said it was a good decision......

AFAICT, the only real problem encountered was that the game pace was too slow, or more would have (presumably) gotten done. Or, as Bullgrit says, he should have got them to agree to play for more than a couple of sessions.

Are you sure that they won't try another two sessions?

EDIT: In retrospect, I would also imagine that choosing to follow the module text about the secret doors, rather than the way the map is drawn, might have made the first session more fun.


RC

 

[Reynard]

As for how long we played vs. how much of the dungeon they covered: Again, had they gone to a more room-populated area of the dungeon (rather than the maze of corridors), they probably would have explored more rooms. The southwestern part of the dungeon has just 3 numbered areas. Compare to the southeastern part of the dungeon – 12 rooms!

...

This one-game-session experience has taught me a valuable lesson about any RPG: You can’t get a full feel for the game with just one game session. You can’t get a full feel of even just a single adventure with just one game session. I really should have gotten everyone’s agreement to play the full dungeon, and not just one game session. But this was at least the third time I’ve offered to run this BD&D game to this group – I was happy to at last get agreement on one game session.

Tangential, but related: A while back I was itching to run 1E again and I decided that I would give ToEE a try. My player group (made up mostly of 30-somethings like me) agreed and we set to it. Our gaming schedule, however, was such that we got together (on average) every other week for 3 hours or so. We discovered very quickly that there's a reason we all used to play 8 to 12 hour "marathon" session back in the day, and not just because we could: sporadic, short sessions and big old krawls do not a good combination make.

Dungeon crawls are often, IME, a function of effort and reward, with just enough carrots mixed in to keep players moving and exploring. When you play for 9 hours, there's a solid pace of those carrots. But when you spread that 9 hour session over 6 weeks, it can become a slog -- particularly if, as in Bullgrit's example, the players end up in a less interesting portion of the dungeon.

I suppose the key would be to eliminate the less interesting portions prior to play of the module, but sometimes they are hard to recognize before the PCs get bogged down in them.