AD&D 1E What makes a D&D game have a 1E feel?

[Lidgar]

Less reliant on class abilities, more reliant on ingenuity to overcome obstacles...to get stuff.

 

[Lanefan]

Level drain.

More seriously, there's a few things that could make any D&D feel more like 1e:

- pull some of the rules back behind the DM screen: magic item lists and pricing, combat bonus by level (BAB in 3e), etc.
- no healing without use of either a divine spell, a potion, a device (rare!), or lengthy rest; and no magical healing at any range greater than 'touch'
- magic items have to save or be destroyed if carried by someone who fails a save vs. area damage e.g. fireball, lightning bolt, dragon breath, etc.
- an overriding sense, emphasized by the DM at session 0, that the game world will be out to kill the PCs dead; that bad things can and will happen to PCs so don't get mad when they do
- an overriding sense, borne out in play, that the party is more important than any one character: characters come and go while the party is (one hopes!) everlasting
- fewer mechanics - no feats, no skills except for thieving abilities, etc.
- no ASIs. Permanent stat boosts in 1e were very uncommon.
- harsher revival options after death including a resurrection survival roll to come back at all and permanent loss of a con point if you do
- henches and hirelings in the party; and multiple PCs per player whether played all at once or not

 

[Tony Vargas]

So Frog God Games market their products as having a 1E feel. What to you makes a product have a 1E feel?

It sucks in that same comfortingly familiar way we became accustomed to while playing 1e because there wasn't anything else.

As opposed to sucking in any other way, which'd just be sucky.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

It sucks in that same comfortingly familiar way we became accustomed to while playing 1e because there wasn't anything else.

As opposed to sucking in any other way, which'd just be sucky.

So you’re not a FGG fan? Or not a 1E fan?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Everyone keeps their character sheets in Trapper Keepers.

Trapper Keeper?

 

[GreyLord]

The 5e Old School document on DMsguild...obviously...

Hey, I'll even give you a link!!! http://www.dmsguild.com/product/180409/5e-Old-School-and-Oriental-Adventures

(actually, it was originally focused on OD&D, and then I added in BECMI and AD&D, and then OA at the end of it all).

More seriously, I don't think it's just one thing that makes it have a 1e feel. I think there are a bunch of factors ranging from everything in regards to how races are, to how classes are built and interact. It's also that feel where you pick and choose what rules to use or enforce (that's more of an OD&D thing, but I think there are plenty of us who also did this in AD&D). There's a LOT there that makes it have a distinct feel all of it's own, but it's not just one little thing, it's the entire package (if one could put it that way).

From the Gygax feel, to the Class limitations and focus on humanity, from the XP tables that are all different to the various states of spellcasting. Sometimes what really feels nostalgic 1e to me may mean nothing to the guy next to me, and vice versa.

Because of this, it can be very hard to boil down exactly what causes a game to have that 1e feel and what does not.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Needing a twenty page PDF to follow the combat rules! http://knights-n-knaves.com/dmprata/ADDICT.pdf

But as I went from BECMI to AD&D, we pretty much played lose BECM rules with AD&D classes and monsters - I really have no idea. It was fun tho, so make it fun with crazy stuff going on cos we were teens and we just let it flow

Rolling 1E style into OS style - for me it's less flashy, more dangerous, more thinking, less rolling (apart from rolling up PCs), more talking and running, and very much about getting the gold - even when you are supposedly Lawful Good!

 

[CubicsRube]

Less reliant on class abilities, more reliant on ingenuity to overcome obstacles...to get stuff.

For me its gold for xp and this.

Gold for xp as it gives one of the most sensical reasons youd be adventuring anyway - more gold trhan you could dream of in a lifetime. If you want to use that to buil an orphanage, or buy a tavern and drink all the profits, hey, thats on your pc. But at least we know why you're risking your life.

It ties into the above as well i think which i believe is the most 1e feeling elements "game as puzzle"

A lot of trapped dungeons and overpowered monsters couldnt be defeated directly. You had to find ways to navigate a corridoor without setting off traps, to find a way to distract, poison or otherwise occupy that family of ogres guarding that lovely chest.

All the other elements such as morale rules, reaction tables etc, i feel were to support that

 

[Jer]

What to you gives the 1E feel to D&D games or products?

I honestly don't think there is such a thing. Or rather not such a singular thing. "1e feel" to me mostly means "trying to recapture how the game was played when I started playing in the late 70s/early 80s/mid 80s/late 80s" and that varied so much across time, from region to region, or even from table to table that I think everyone has their own idea of what it means.

What that term means for me is "survivalist". You're in a world where everything is trying to kill you and your goal is to kill them first - generally by accumulating power and wealth. Because that's how the AD&D 1e players played the game around me in the early 80s. It was often fun at the time, but I drifted away from that style with my own B/X D&D games where the players tended to want to be more "heroic" - more "save the princess" less "grub in a hole in the ground and hope we find a magic sword".

I personally don't think modern D&D versions support the survivalist style of play very well mostly because of character creation - character creation takes too much effort even in 5e for a character who might die the first time you roll the dice. If you aren't playing a game where characters potentially die when they open the wrong door, or flub a find traps roll, or accidentally stumble into the lair of a horde of goblins who proceed to slaughter them and eat their entrails in front of them, you aren't playing what I consider a "1e" game. A 1e game to me means character death - lots and lots of character death - and characters that you don't bother investing a lot of energy into until they're at least 5th level because they're likely to be dead the next time you play.

I know AD&D 1e was not this for everyone - but that's the association I make with it. Survivalist bordering on "survivalist horror".

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*