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As others have pointed out, OD&D/1E AD&D comes out of wargaming, official AD&D miniatures, ranges in inches, and 2 paragraphs of optional minis rules in the 1E DMG (and OD&D). No one I knew was using those when we were teens or younger. I think you overlooked that in theory, the DM should be...

Wow, well done. That's a unique idea.

First, I don't play 4E and I won't pay money to own any of the books. So no references to 4E will be useful to me. I'm assuming this discussion is relevant to any edition of D&D (as per the OP). Second, you keep saying we "need this" and "need that" and it's untrue. All you need is the fact...

No, here's the option you're overlooking: There could be more of them. Hundreds of them. In an armada of ships. That's exactly how it worked in core OD&D/1E. Ideally you'd want a new combat mechanic that easily dealt with that scale, however. (As was provided with things like original...

Massive Damage. A core rule so nuts (and so unlike the rest of D&D) that most people assume it's some crazy variant option from the DMG. (Better to make falling damage, etc., cumulative like in 1E AD&D UA.) Iterative Attacks from BAB. Easy to overlook -- but 3E should have folded that into a...

That's from AD&D 1E Unearthed Arcana, p. 80:

Totally agree. Now admittedly old-school D&D requires that DMs actually change how the game gets played as levels go up (a scaling issue). So maybe you just need to talk-through/roleplay the fact that at 8th level you can easily carve through 20 guards when need be. Or you need to start using...

Give me OD&D/Basic/1E over this any day. Once I hit 9th level, I'm recognized as a ruler among men. As the 40-year-old friend I introduced D&D to said, "If the NPCs all get better at the same rate as me, what's the point?"

I'd like to see an example of that in a Gygax 1E adventure. One thing that was nice in the 1E DMG was tables for city guard/wilderness patrol groups with specific levels attached for soldiers vs. leaders (maxed out at around 8th level for army captains). That set a very nice baseline for what...

Version 1.1 Also today: An update to Dan's Diminutive d20 after more playtests & analysis. Primary changes are as follows: "Uniform Feats" which more closely match core rules feat acquisition, but spread evenly across levels. Fighters get a feat every level; rogues every 3/4; wizards every 1/2...

Hey lion, I just saw your post today. Thanks for the comment and really good question. My aggravation with the human bonus feat is mostly a two-fold accounting issue: I. At 1st level it requires new players to parse and select from multiple feats, which is additional starting complication...

The original Erol Otus cover still sends creepy shivers down my spine. What empty cosmic wasteland is that? And geez, even the "good" deity looks zombie-awful. :uhoh:

If the mustache was good enough for V, then the veiny-crinkly-messed-up face is good enough for me. He's evil.

Are you testing the "general population" or are you testing "people interested in gaming"? Because my point is that they're not the same. (I feel like I'm going down a path that's previously gotten me censured on ENWorld, but nontheless...)

Admitedly, the vast majority of the population cannot do what you just did. I expect D&D players would test much, much better at probability than the population-at-large. Scene: I'm teaching a class. I finish a problem and come up with, say, 75%. I now know that I have to ask "Is that good bet...

You realize that all those items you mention 1E-3E were all in 1E, right? (Most PHB; barbarian UA; specialty priests in Greyhawk). Which goes to show how radically 4E has veered off from what many of us recognize as the D&D brand.

The research that Glazius is citing is pretty much rock-solid. People in general royally suck at handling probability. But that doesn't mean that long odds shouldn't be part of a game. If anything, it argues more strongly that long odds should be part of a game, where people can play/...

I totally agree. I've been saying the same thing for about 10 years since I was at a computer game company and seeing the same thing happen there. Version (1) made by auteur game designer with story & mechanics working hand-in-hand. Version (2) made by a team with separate people responsible for...

And yet my players demanded the "Variant: Instant Kill" for both. They wouldn't have imagined being comfortable with "PCs get special treatment".

You know, the people I played 3E with were bothered at the prospect of ever not being able to kill someone with one blow. They demanded we use the DMG "Variant: Instant Kill" rule (20-20-hit = autodeath; about 1:800 chance on any attack I figure). It did memorably save the PCs from a TPK once.