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Yes. We are talking about the Moathouse at present. You (IIRC) wondered how many encounters it took for a 1e party to advance in level compared to the 13.33 that a 3e party is assumed to need. I pointed out the various encounters in the Moathouse, of which there are 15 (or 16 depending on how...

No, there probably isn't. I think that this, like the incredibly opaque 1e initiative system, the unarmed combat system, and several other things, is an artifact of the haphazard development of the original AD&D game. Game elements seem to have often been introduced that were cumbersome and...

But the larger 3e party has to face tougher challenges for the opposition to be appropriate. Instead of an EL 1 encounter at 1st level, they should be facing EL 2 encounters. Since we are comparing "relative encounters to level" for the 1e and 3e party, the fact that the Moathouse encounters...

I miss the 1e training rules. And the 1e initiative system. And the 10 coins to the pound ratio. Okay, no I don't miss any of those things. I miss being young enough to be able to play regularly four or five times a week.

That actually biases things downward for the 3e party. In other words, they should not, at 1st level, be expected to defeat 13.33 EL 1 encounters to gain a level. Rather they should be expected to defeat 13.33 EL 1.5 to EL 2 encounters to do so. At second level they would be expected to defeat...

EL is not the same as CR.

I will note that this was released after the Blumes took over TSR. According to Ariosto, this cannot be used as evidence of how "old school" people played, since they were just stuffed corporate shirts.

The results of this poll, plus Hussar's poll on play styles, leads me to the following conclusions (which are as reliable as the data they are based on, which comes from internet polls, so take that for what you will): 1. Many people in the "old days" knew of, or at least had heard about, the...

No, that's not quite right. By the time the PCs will have encountered the gnolls, they will likely be 2nd level. Also, the 3e award set up presumes a 4 character party, which is a lot smaller than a typical 1e party was expected to be. If you add two or three PCs (or more, 1e adventures were...

Actually 3-6. Four chances out of six are 3, 4, 5, 6.

You're right. I misremembered. That just makes the problem worse. We almost never played with the training rules anyway. In addition to the annoyance of getting money and halting XP gain and finding a mentor and so on, we always thought it somewhat creepy that the DM would be grading the players.

In my experience (granted, it is only anecdotal) among the most common house rules were abolishing the training rules (or at least using the "Only Train When You Gain" system outlined in The Dragon), and eliminating the GP = XP equation. But, if you used the training rules, I note that while...

Looking at the Moathouse, I note that I missed one encounter (that's what I get for working from memory): between the bandit encounter and the giant snake encounter there are some stirges, so there are sixteen total encounters in the Moathouse (fifteen if Lareth and his guards are consolidated)...

Oh, I think characters were supposed to follow a linked series in order, without additional material between them. What you are citing is merely a practical issue concerning the nature of publication. Some of the adventures, such as G1-G2-G3 and A3-A4 are clearly intended to follow directly one...

Which conclusions do you dispute? That levelling in 1e modules didn't comport with the expected gain one would have to have to continue along a particular linked set of adventures? Or that the rate of levelling per adventure in 1e wasn't very similar to the rate of levelling in 3e? Your claims...

I voted 2, but I think that El Laprade's response demonstrates that the questions are not worded very well. At the time I was familiar with the idea that megadungeons could exist and Gygax may have used one, but never DMed, played in, or heard of a group actually using one. The way the poll is...

So now it isn't just that the Blumes somehow got their grubby corporate hands on the decision making (a claim which has been factually disproven concerning the modules and other products being discussed), now it is that Gygax simply acted in bad faith when he ran TSR? Your argument gets sillier...

Ariosto has claimed that somehow, adventuring in a megadungeon makes the acquisition of experience and treasure incredibly different from adventuring in a series of smaller dungeons. I have asked him to explain why, and thus far his responses have been entirely unconvincing. I've also pointed...

The fact that the Blumes didn't take over TSR until 1981, well after all the modules we are talking about had been published is what makes your claim untenable. Gygax was running the show from 1975 to 1981. What TSR produced was what he wanted the company to produce. Hence, your disdain for the...

Here's the problem with the "megadungeons were intended to be the norm" argument in a nutshell. The whole idea is based on this supposed mystic cabal of people "in the know" who got their training presumably from some secret network of people who could tap directly into Gygax's brain and divine...