OD&D Edition Experience: Did/Do You Play OD&D? How Was/Is It?

[Oofta]

Where did Gary say this?

I'd have to dig out my old books, I just remember reading that and talking it over with my buddies. We always did roll with min half.

 

[Retreater]

Yeah, we had a lot of house rules so you didn't end up with a fighter in basically the same boat. According to Gygax you were supposed to embrace the weakness and just be the guy in the back shooting arrows because 1 hit could take out your mid-to-high level fighter.

Which meant that a lot of times you couldn't play the hero you had envisioned or the party simply didn't have a front line. May have worked for some people, not so much with people I played with.

It's not about what someone has "envisioned." It's about practicality. If the entire group is in the back shooting arrows, then they are all going to get charged and slaughtered. So someone has to be the "speed bump" and get killed by the advancing horde?

Maybe it's heresy, but I'll say that Gygax might have been an innovator in the hobby, but certainly not the definitive word on how the game should be played. A comparison is that we can appreciate games like Pong or Space Invaders for their place in video game history - and maybe even sit down and play them for 5 minutes - but they're hardly holding their own to modern games.

 

[Oofta]

It's not about what someone has "envisioned." It's about practicality. If the entire group is in the back shooting arrows, then they are all going to get charged and slaughtered. So someone has to be the "speed bump" and get killed by the advancing horde?

Maybe it's heresy, but I'll say that Gygax might have been an innovator in the hobby, but certainly not the definitive word on how the game should be played. A comparison is that we can appreciate games like Pong or Space Invaders for their place in video game history - and maybe even sit down and play them for 5 minutes - but they're hardly holding their own to modern games.

Different people play for different reasons. I want to enact a vision of what I want my hero to be within the parameters of the game. Quite simply: I'm not a fan of randomness in the meta-game aspects of character creation or level advancement. I want to tell a story, not have a story told to me by the dice.

To each their own.

 

[Inchoroi]

I didn't play OD&D first. My first RPG was actually Exalted, before getting tired of 4-hour-long combats and moving on to 4e, then to 3.5, then to PF, then back to 4e for a bit, before moving on to 5e when it came out (the day of, in fact). I have played one-shots/short campaigns using every edition, however; I keep threatening to make my players play B/X for a whole campaign, just to see them suffer.

I don't think I'd go back to any other edition or other game, for the time being, much to my wife's annoyance. She absolutely loved playing Exalted because of how insanely powerful it was.

 

[reelo]

I'm not a fan of randomness in the meta-game aspects of character creation or level advancement. I want to tell a story, not have a story told to me by the dice.

That's why in old-school games dice should be rolled far less often. Dice-rolls should only come into play when failure represents a non-trivial risk.

 

[Oofta]

That's why in old-school games dice should be rolled far less often. Dice-rolls should only come into play when failure represents a non-trivial risk.

Like ability score generation or HP gained when leveling?

 

[HarbingerX]

Different people play for different reasons. I want to enact a vision of what I want my hero to be within the parameters of the game. Quite simply: I'm not a fan of randomness in the meta-game aspects of character creation or level advancement. I want to tell a story, not have a story told to me by the dice.

To each their own.

Quite right. I'm the complete opposite. I want the randomness of the dice to determine who I am and forge a character and personality from that.

 

[Oofta]

Quite right. I'm the complete opposite. I want the randomness of the dice to determine who I am and forge a character and personality from that.

Yeah, this is one of those things that there is no "correct" answer in any edition just different approaches and preferences.

 

[HarbingerX]

That's why in old-school games dice should be rolled far less often. Dice-rolls should only come into play when failure represents a non-trivial risk.

This is why I still am not sold on using dice rolls to determine players success/failure. I only use checks when failure has consequences or I'm uncertain of the outcome. And coming from OSR games, why not just assign a probability on a d6 instead of forcing the paladin of the party to do all the talking because he's got persuasion and high CHA? By giving the DM sole control of setting the odds, any PC can attempt persuasion, and if I like what they're arguing they get better odds.

<sigh> all this talk is reminding me of what I don't like about putting so many mechanics into the character action resolution.

 

[JeffB]

Yeah, this is one of those things that there is no "correct" answer in any edition just different approaches and preferences.

Which is the jist of my postings. One man's trash...