TSR Why would anyone want to play 1e?

[el-remmen]

Except for one case, every thief I saw in 1E or 2E was a multiclassed character. The one case was a party where people played more than one character, so I played a thief who always was uber cautious and rarely got into direct combat and a elven fighter/magic-user.

As for finding and then disarming traps, isn't that how it has always worked (and still works)?

Finding a trap without disarming it can still be a very useful thing and it feels weird to auto lump it in with disarm as an example of an even worse chance to succeed. We often found traps and then tried to find a way to safely set it off, or find another route, rather than risk disarming unless absolutely necessary.

 

[LordBP]

Some folks made similar complaints about AD&D when it came out. That it was munchkinized and PCs were excessively powerful compared to OD&D. Higher HP! Faster healing! Clerics getting a spell at first level, and pretty much always more than one because of bonus spells for a high Wisdom, forsooth!

Started on B/X and didn't have any issues with 1E or 2E (some of the splat books were a bit much though).

When reading through 3E, it hit me that they were trying to make it more like Everquest and I really didn't care for that direction even though I played EQ way too much.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Except for one case, every thief I saw in 1E or 2E was a multiclassed character.

The only F/T I saw were dwarves or 1/2 orcs because the multi-class rules were so punishing. Why would you be a halfing F/T when you capped out at level 4 or 5 fighter but still had to give 1/2 your XP to that class forever. Check, that, I did see more F/T in groups that ignored racial level limitations.

 

[Theory of Games]

So basically, it comes down to how 1e rules were written so poorly* that everyone had their own house rules and/or ignored rules to make the game their own, which in turn meant of course it was better than any subsequent edition because those editions weren't your rules you were currently playing with. Plus, the aesthetic was freaking cool man!


*context is important. 1e rules are awful by modern standards. All over the place and contradictory in others, and not easily parsed. But compared to OD&D, they were a huge improvement. And they deserve credit since the genre was still pretty new.

Based on threads posted on EN World's D&D sub-forum, it's clear many people are confused by the most recent ruleset. Ultimately, we play what we play because we enjoy the overall experience

 

[Sacrosanct]

Based on threads posted on EN World's D&D sub-forum, it's clear many people are confused by the most recent ruleset. Ultimately, we play what we play because we enjoy the overall experience

Judging by the letters section of Dragon magazine, I can only imagine what an internet forum would look like if it existed back in the day. I imagine it would make the current 5e questions look minimal by comparison

 

[Theory of Games]

Judging by the letters section of Dragon magazine, I can only imagine what an internet forum would look like if it existed back in the day. I imagine it would make the current 5e questions look minimal by comparison

What I really enjoyed about reading Dragon back in the day was how Gygax, Kask and others would respond to the letters from gamers. You just don't see that kind of product support much anymore

 

[Sacrosanct]

What I really enjoyed about reading Dragon back in the day was how Gygax, Kask and others would respond to the letters from gamers. You just don't see that kind of product support much anymore

Well, Gary's dead, and Tim has a weekly youtube video where he responds to people's questions

 

[SableWyvern]

What people prefer is subjective, sure. I'm not arguing against that. I'm saying that 1e's additional charts, less cohesive rule structures, and increased number of rules slows the game down compared to a version that is cleaned up and streamlined. That's pretty objective.

To use the example @aco175 gave, one might like the 1975 toyota truck over the 1989 version and that's fine. But it's objectively slower if you have to get out and manual lock the wheel hubs compared to just shifting the gear from inside.

Sure. And a 4 tonne rigid truck is objectively slower than a Maclaren F1. But that has nothing to do with either being objectively better overall than the other.

 

[SableWyvern]

I think a lot depended on how your table ran thieves.

For example, take something like move silently. IIRC this is how we played it:

If you have a 40% (5th level) and

1. roll 01-40, you move silently and MAKE NO NOISE. Creatures don't try to hear you because they literally cannot. You are silent.
2. roll 41-100, you try to move silently but make some noise. Nearby creatures might hear you, the DM rolls d6 (normally 1-2 means they hear something). So, if the DM rolls 3-6, you made noise, but creatures didn't actually hear it or notice it was you, etc.

So, what does all this mean for the thief? Well, normally a creature would hear someone 33.3% of the time, but because of the thief's skill, it is effectively dropped down to just 20%.

The issue is some groups would have creatures hear you just because you failed the roll without having them make the check to detect noise. Those groups would probably see thieves as bad or at least not as effective.

Another thing that was not common practice was the DM was supposed to roll the checks, not the player, especially in cases like move silently where success or failure might not be apparent. However, most groups in my experience always had the player roll anyway.

Yes. If the thief skills are just doing basic stuff that anyone could try, they're fairly useless.

If thief skills allow you to do things no one else possible can, the dynamic changes completely. For example, if a thief is hiding in shadows, I treat them as being invisible to basically everything other than True Seeing. Unlike magical invisibility, their invisiblity cannot be dispelled or detected.

I still consider that thieves, especially at low levels, as a reasonably weak class, but they are certainly not useless.

 

[SableWyvern]

So basically, it comes down to how 1e rules were written so poorly* that everyone had their own house rules and/or ignored rules to make the game their own, which in turn meant of course it was better than any subsequent edition because those editions weren't your rules you were currently playing with. Plus, the aesthetic was freaking cool man!


*context is important. 1e rules are awful by modern standards. All over the place and contradictory in others, and not easily parsed. But compared to OD&D, they were a huge improvement. And they deserve credit since the genre was still pretty new.

Kind of.

The thing is, every single game I play is going to be adapted to meet my needs. So the question is, which version has the core concepts most aligned with my preferences? In this case, the answer is 1e.

The fact that I don't run 1e RAW doesn't affect a comparison to 2e, because I wouldn't run 2e RAW either.