A new name for Late 1E

[Silver Moon]

Anybody who understands the history of the hobby and products will understand what you mean by designating 'early 1E' and 'late 1E'. If you have to explain it to an audience that is unfamiliar with the difference just use two different date ranges.

 

[Faraer]

These are all different distinctions, aren't they? The one to use depends on what cut-off point is significant to what you're saying. More than one thing changed between 1975 and 1990.

This has my vote. You are correct, Gygax "changed" (for whatever reason) at this point.

That's a matter of opinion. As I see it, Gary's thinking has been in motion from the early 70s through to the present, and UA is just one point in it that you happen not to like.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I tend to divide based on pre-UA and post-UA.

 

[pawsplay]

It was Oriental Adventures that assumed, as a default, higher than average ability scores (the current 3e method, in fact), the use of nonweapon proficiencies, the use of weapon proficiencies for special combat abilities, and a base class for each concept rather than for unique sets of abilities (i.e. bushi vs. samurai). Plus, it had a much more explicit setting than any "core" book thereto. So for me, OA was an important marker.

 

[Contrarian]

What's wrong with the terms 'early 1e' and 'late 1e'?

As soon as a few people agree on the term, a few more people will start arguing about where the line is between 'early' and 'late.'

Threads like this bring to mind an old quote about foolish consistency and hobgoblins. There are too many gamers overly-concerned with putting the entire history of gaming into neat little boxes. Frankly, that's a waste of time, because history never fits into neat little boxes, so trying to create hard-and-fast labels isn't going to work.

At best, the tiny little boxes become useless categories that everybody ignores. At worst, a tiny minority of people (I'm looking at you, Wikipedia and ODP editors) become convinced the labels mean something, and try to arrange the universe into categories that don't mean anything to anybody who's job doesn't involve the tiny little boxes.

This thread is a waste of time. It won't produce anything usable by people who aren't pedants.

 

[Nifft]

I'm just going to call all of OD&D and 1e "the late 1e", if that's cool with y'all.

Cheers, -- N

 

[RFisher]

I can't say how much it annoys me when people use 2.5 to reference the black book era of 2e. It was never referred to such in the day, it shouldn't be now. Besides, it isn't a computer game.

But there was talk in Dragon during 2e development of using that kind of version number system to differentiate various combinations of 1e/2e/variant-rules.

(...but don't get me started on going from x.0 to x.5, 'cause that drives me all prescriptivist & marketing-bashy... (^_^))

There is no mechanical difference between The Era of Stuff Created By Gary and The Era of Stuff Not Created By Gary.

() I think there were mechanical differences between OA/WSG/DSG & the rest. (Noting that although Gary's name was on the OA cover, it's primarily the work of Zeb Cook.) NWPs were a mechanical change. (Although the significance might have varied from group-to-group.)

But forget about mechanics. You don't need mechanical differences for there to be differences.

In any case, I'm with those who think it all depends upon the distinction you are trying to make in a specific context. Pre/post-Gygax, pre/post-UA, pre/post-Dragonlance, pre/post-NWPs. There are lots of distinctions to be made.

Which is part of why I left things like "oAD&D+" off my edition recognition chart.

Edit: Changed "changes" to "differences" since I think it fits better.

 

[shilsen]

Well, 1e died a few editions ago, so technically it's all late

 

[Delta]

It was Oriental Adventures that assumed, as a default, higher than average ability scores (the current 3e method, in fact)...

This is not the first thread where you've stated that, again incorrectly. 4d6 drop lowest has been the default rolling method since the 1E DMG. Copy of 1E DMG p. 11 attached, (c) 1979:

 

[rossik]

This thread is a waste of time. It won't produce anything usable by people who aren't pedants.

well...i actually love 1ed history, but i dont know much. this kind of topic helps me understand some things, so i think this is usefull