TSR Why would anyone want to play 1e?

This thread is like an Edition Cold War.

Hex08 said:

Castles and Crusades is my go to when the rare occasion presents itself that I want to run a D&D game. You are right that it's a D20 hack but it simplifies the D20 system while having an old school feel. When I play it I feel like I am playing a 2E game (even though I started with B/X and 1E, 2E is my favorite). I don't think the intent of C&C is to trry to emulate the rules of 1E or 2E but instead is being presented as a simpler and faster D&D than 1e, 2E or 3.x that "feels" like 1E or 2E. When I do run it I usually use 1E or 2e adventures. I am actually considering running a campaign soon, either Against the Giants or Night Below.

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The real reasons C&C's rules are the way they are is because they predate OSRIC. Essentially, they didn't think they could clone AD&D legally.

All that said, I do like C&C. One of the things I dislike about 5E is the party of all furry Sonic OCs that every party is now (doubly so now with the 2024 revision to how species work). Because of the new rules they had to make C&C takes the human-centric view of a fantasy setting like AD&D 1E did but does it without restricting your choice of races or making the leveling penalties onerous. By simply making humans get three prime stats instead of everybody else's two there is now a huge mechanical reason to play a human. From my observations playing and running the game it's absolutely the best racial bonus there is.

TSR Thieves are bad to some people. There's been people in this thread who've posted their enjoyment of playing the class. This idea that they were objectively bad doesn't pass the sniff test, especially when you consider that once the Magic-User ran out of spells, that class was a liability to many parties

Theory of Games said:

TSR Thieves are bad to some people. There's been people in this thread who've posted their enjoyment of playing the class. This idea that they were objectively bad doesn't pass the sniff test, especially when you consider that once the Magic-User ran out of spells, that class was a liability to many parties

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Some folks really like playing on hard mode. Your Mileage May Vary as always.

Individual tastes always vary. Though whether TSR-era Thieves are bad in combat and have terrible chances of using most of their skills is simple to see if you just read the text and look at the numbers.

I've spent a lot of time playing these editions in the past five years, in particular. Right now I'm running both an M-U and a Thief in an OSE game, though the DM has implemented house rules to help them both.

Li Shenron said:

I don't think so. Speed and complexity are real but what I think is, that it is very subjective that all those features are negative aspects in a game, for anyone, which is kind of what your thread title claims... although you did say the title was click-bait. Some people can definitely prefer more complexity or having to look up charts, or even a harder character to play, and that can give them other reasons beyond nostalgia on why they prefer 1e over 2e.

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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.

Theory of Games said:

TSR Thieves are bad to some people. There's been people in this thread who've posted their enjoyment of playing the class.

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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.

My one viable 1st-to-5th level 1e Thief was only reasonably viable because 1) 18 Dex, 2) wearing no armor for the additional bonuses to Thief skills, and 3) dual-classed into Thief only after first gaining 4 levels as a fighter, and obtaining 42hp and bracers of AC6-7ish along the way.

Those 42hp especially made survival as a 1st level thief a lot more likely when you fell off that wall.

Mannahnin said:

Some folks really like playing on hard mode. Your Mileage May Vary as always.

Individual tastes always vary. Though whether TSR-era Thieves are bad in combat and have terrible chances of using most of their skills is simple to see if you just read the text and look at the numbers.

I've spent a lot of time playing these editions in the past five years, in particular. Right now I'm running both an M-U and a Thief in an OSE game, though the DM has implemented house rules to help them both.

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I'll go ahead and make the distinction you're trying to make - that compared to WotC's versions of D&D, the TSR-era Thieves were bad. It's an important distinction because WotC changed a great deal about the game, so much so that Gary Gygax said WotC's game was no longer even D&D.

I'll further note that Thieves were better (THAC0) at combat than Magic-Users and just as good as Clerics (according to the Rules Cyclopedia). Again, I agree that everyone didn't enjoy play TSR-era Thieves, but, some people did and the class wasn't as objectively useless as you depict here. I started with AD&D and ran it for high school friends, so unlike some people my opinions here - like yours - aren't formed from just reading the books

Riley said:

4 levels as a fighter, and obtaining 42hp

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That's a lot for the 4d10 (avg 22, max 40) + con bonus per level that a 4th level fighter gets. 18 con and a little above average rolls or 15-17 con and really good rolls.

Riley said:

My only viable 1st-to-5th level 1e Thief was reasonably viable because 1) 18 Dex, 2) wearing no armor for the additional bonuses to Thief skills, and 3) dual-classed into Thief only after first gaining 4 levels as a fighter, and obtaining 42hp and bracers of AC6-7ish along the way.

Those 42hp especially made survival as a 1st level thief a lot more likely when you fell off that wall.

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Really? Climb walls started at 85%, even slightly-slippery dropping that to 70%. With no armor your base at 1st level increased to 95% and just 90% to slightly-slippery services. You should have been making those most of the time. Depending on what you are climbing and why, using spikes and ropes to harness yourself helped stop much of any falling damage in my experience.

What bothered me more was the distances climbed in the DMG. And of course the confusing differences between information in the player's handbook and DMG. I don't recall how much 2E cleaned it all up.