D&D General D&D Editions: Anybody Else Feel Like They Don't Fit In?

[Clint_L]

In AD&D, a 10-foot square could hold three characters abreast. Hence, Gygax's love of polearms. A second rank of henchmen with long spears could deliver an attack during the same activation. Monsters with spears did it all the time. It felt like a war game to us. The thief's job was to go around and backstab the enemy's Magic-User or Shaman.

I never once saw or heard about this strategy being used prior to reading this post. I would not call that typical Ad&D play. That does sound like trying to run AD&D like a war game, which must have been very challenging.

 

[Mannahnin]

I never once saw or heard about this strategy being used prior to reading this post. I would not call that typical Ad&D play. That does sound like trying to run AD&D like a war game, which must have been very challenging.

The example of play in the 1E DMG has the party getting arranged into this kind of ranked formation to optimize attacks, though they don't get into any corridor fights so you don't see it showcased in use.

We never had enough characters or had enough limited frontage fights when I was young for us to get into using spears and ranked formation regularly, but it's a tactic I've seen a lot since I started playing OSR ~15 years ago.

 

[The Soloist]

I never once saw or heard about this strategy being used prior to reading this post. I would not call that typical Ad&D play. That does sound like trying to run AD&D like a war game, which must have been very challenging.

Not knowing about something doesn't make it rare or atypical. It's a well-known strategy on old-school forums like Dragonsfoot and The Piazza. As wargamers before becoming RPG players, it made sense to us and we didn't find it challenging. It couples very well with side initiative and it is a very efficient way to survive encounters against large numbers of humanoids, which are common in TSR modules.

It's called 'Skilled play' by Grognards.

 

[Mark Craddock]

I started playing in College in 1991. I turn 53 this year. Shouldn't it make sense that some of us feel like we don't fit it? Companies market to demographics that are much younger than me and I think that's okay. And after decades of playing a game, especially in a busy world, I find I prefer rules I'm familiar with and far less crunch than even 5E provides. I think its conceited for fans to think the material and the base won't evolve and move past us.

I will play 5E but I won't run it as Shadowdark or Shadows of the Weird Wizard are more my speed these days.

I sell comics and games for a living. I started reading comics in the early '80s where a conflence of great IPs being licensed and some great stories managed to give us roughly a decade of some of the best comic books ever published with character defining runs at Marvel and DC.

As readers of that era aged and the rise of video games occurred the industry could prevent the loss of hundreds of thousands of readers of various age groups.

However, the industry still tries to emulate a second golden age of success that they cannot replicate. And we see this in other fandoms as well.

Look at all the flack Star Wars gets because it can't magically transport all of its audience to whichever era you love.

I mean no disrespect with this post but I don't think its possible to make an entire fan base happy and I think trying to do so always ends poorly.

Its okay to take some time off or even walk away from something you love and its normal, IMO, that whatever that something is they can't always replicated past success' and could very well destroy themselves trying to.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As wargamers before becoming RPG players

Not something I had any experience of back then either. We were kids, wargamers were crusty old men. There was zero overlap until Warhammer came out a couple of years later, and some kids went from RPGs to Warhammer.

In those days of long before the internet, I got my ideas of how to play from adventure modules, other RPGs and White Dwarf.

 

[The Soloist]

Not something I had any experience of back then either. We were kids, wargamers were crusty old men. There was zero overlap until Warhammer came out a couple of years later, and some kids went from RPGs to Warhammer.

In those long before the internet, I got my ideas of how to play from adventure modules, other RPGs and White Dwarf.

I had a different experience. We had a wargaming club in high school on Saturdays. The age range varied from 15 to 30. I was 16 and fascinated by the wide array of games they played. It's where I met other D&D players. Everything we learned at the club was transferred to AD&D as valid tactics, which are reflected in the DMG.

Now, if a group went from BX, bought the AD&D MM and the Players Handbook but never fully read the DMG (as in, just used the encounter and treasure chapters), I can see how rank & file tactics would not be part of their experience.

 

[JohnSnow]

Before I read back through the last 8-20 pages to catch up, did someone cast "Thread Necromancy" recently, or has this thread I started 9 months ago just kept ticking along?

Because if so....dayummmm.

 

[Remathilis]

I never once saw or heard about this strategy being used prior to reading this post. I would not call that typical Ad&D play. That does sound like trying to run AD&D like a war game, which must have been very challenging.

I started in Basic (All New -> RC) and moved to 2e, and A LOT of things that I'm told were "common" in AD&D read like a whole different game than the one I played. We played 1 PC per player. Henchmen were rare, but DMPCs were common. Nobody used polearms, and we fought monsters as often as we fought orcs. We played the style of play 90s TSR pushed: story driven and character intensive. We just played it with rules derived from a game style created in the 70s and no longer en vogue. No wonder I don't feel anything for the OS movement: it doesn't match the game I played back in the day. It might as well be advocating for GURPs for all it resembles the AD&D I played, except in the archaic rules it held onto for compatibility.

 

[Wolfpack48]

It's called 'Skilled play' by Grognards.

No. "Skilled play" is not metagaming. Skilled play is being aware of the scenario situation, thinking proactively, responding to challenges with clear thought and deduction, using your character's skills and abilities intelligently, acting as a team, and applying common sense.

 

[The Soloist]

No. "Skilled play" is not metagaming. Skilled play is being aware of the scenario situation, thinking proactively, responding to challenges with clear thought and deduction, using your character's skills and abilities intelligently, acting as a team, and applying common sense.

Your assumption that AD&D characters are not aware of medieval combat tactics is fallacious. It's all around them. There are wars and skirmishes all the time. Fighters are trained by war veterans and often serve in the armies. Greyhawk is a rank-and-file setting. Gygax has said it's based partly on the War of the Roses (1455-1487).

Rank-and-file tactics are not metagaming.