D&D General A Trip Back In Time: On The Utter Weirdness of Old Spells

[Coroc]

Which raised its own questions: when calculating those hit points vs the limit, do you use the target's maximum hit points or the hit points it currently has?

It is the current hp, it is a take the boss down somehow spell in a way. At least in 5e and i am quite sure in 2e also. In 2e it would not matter much anyway since few mobs had 120+ hp. A mage in 2e casting that spell had to be level 18 at least. If he would not have additional hp due to high con that is taking 2,5 hp avg x 10 + 8hp = 33 hp. Even with 15 con it would only be 43 hp with 16 con it is 53 hp.

One dragonbreath he did not save against or a full multiattack by a mob and he is done. Therefore it is less unfair than it sounds.

 

[occam]

One thing to remember is that in 1970, 70% of American families belonged to a church or synogogue and more than 50% attended weekly services. Young adults developing fantasy games in the 70s, whether they themselves were believers in anything, would have as likely as not grown up getting dragged to services and would definitely be familier with the cooler miracles like rod-to-snakes, parting water, plagues of frogs...

Sure, and don't discount the fact that DeMille's The Ten Commandments was on TV every year around Passover/Easter. Those visuals would've been easily recalled when coming up with spells for D&D.

 

[Byrd]

Sleep Curse sounds cool. Very fairytale. I like that kind of thing.

It seems clearly intended to be an evil NPC casting it to set up a thing the party encounters, from the era when adventures were often designed with strict adherence to rules, and explanations thereof for the reader.

Or for a friendly TPK if players bit off more than they can chew, lett7ng a new party or NPC rescue them later with no real harm done.

Or a case of "Tell me that Archmage is on the Path of the Paragon, without telling me that that Archmage is questing for immortality."
Knocking a rival out of the game for 100 years would help with the Task portion.

Lots of plot hook potential!

 

[Byrd]

Sure, and don't discount the fact that DeMille's The Ten Commandments was on TV every year around Passover/Easter. Those visuals would've been easily recalled when coming up with spells for D&D.

Standard fare for Christmas and Easter/Passover.
Wizard of Oz and sometimes Star Wars as well.

Ah, the days before VCRs.

 

[overgeeked]

I honestly don't know how "I don't know what my magic item does" is supposed to be interesting or fun in 99% of the situations.

There’s so many aspects of these games that leave me scratching my head and feeling like an alien anthropologist. “And that’s supposed to be… fun?”

 

[doghead]

There’s so many aspects of these games that leave me scratching my head and feeling like an alien anthropologist. “And that’s supposed to be… fun?”

I think that the intention was that magic is unpredictable and dangerous. It is a conception of magic that is as old as the idea of magic itself. Ordinary people avoided magic. Using magic was the prerogative of those who were bold and clever.

Did they get the implementation right? Not always, as some of the examples above show. Was it fun? Yes, it absolutely could be. I think that this is evidenced by the revival of OSR games which lean into the more traditional view of magic vs magic as a smart device with a straightforward UI and no surprises.

thotd

 

[ragweed-1]

Standard fare for Christmas and Easter/Passover.
Wizard of Oz and sometimes Star Wars as well.

Ah, the days before VCRs.

I sometimes get irrationally annoyed and want to go geezer mode when my kids want to go back and rewind a few minutes of a show because they missed something. I just sometimes wanna say "too bad, wait six months for the re-runs (uphill, both ways...)"

 

[billd91]

Got it. Now I'm reminded, specifically by your Llolth example, of why I never liked it being that way: spells like this shouldn't be a cheap way of finishing off weakened high-powered foes, but instead a way of neutralizing lower-powered foes.

Keep in mind also that other than deities (and some really high-level Fighters), there weren't many creatures in 1e as written that had more than 90 hit points even at full. Magic resistance for the win, I suppose.

Put a save on it though, even at big minuses, and it's fine.

I'm not sure I'd call any 7th level spell (or higher for some of the other ones) as "a cheap way of finishing off weakened high-powered foes". A cheap way would be finishing them off with a lower leveled spell. It seems fitting for a high level spell to be capable of it, though.

 

[overgeeked]

I think that the intention was that magic is unpredictable and dangerous. It is a conception of magic that is as old as the idea of magic itself. Ordinary people avoided magic. Using magic was the prerogative of those who were bold and clever.

Did they get the implementation right? Not always, as some of the examples above show. Was it fun? Yes, it absolutely could be. I think that this is evidenced by the revival of OSR games which lean into the more traditional view of magic vs magic as a smart device with a straightforward UI and no surprises.

thotd

Absolutely. I'm one of those that enjoys dangerous and wild magic. Gimme spell checks, spell fumbles, and random effects tables and/or mutations from fumbled magic. I love that stuff.

I was more referring to some of the more tedious homework / busywork elements of the game. Encumbrance, rations & water (when not explicitly playing a survival-focused game), etc. So much of the "resource attrition" aspects of the early game are just so much bother with no bite. I get the argument that it creates the potential for great scenes, when you run out of X bad things happen or when you have to decide to keep Y or Z, etc. I've made those arguments myself many times over the years.

But it's one of those things that exists as a potential that is easily and quickly overcome by even slightly experienced players that effectively never comes up again. You catch them once or twice with "well, you didn't say you looked up" then suddenly they're always describing looking up. You catch them once or twice without rations, then they're stocking up on rations or bringing hirelings, porters, and pack mules. And yes, sure, you can then just attack the hirelings, porters, and pack mules... but it's all so tedious. Why devolve the game into Log Sheets & Logistics.

As much as I love OSR-style play, I really hate the logistics mini-game. Mostly because it never really matters. It's neither fun nor interesting. You're forced to do all this pointless busywork so the referee can't hit you in the paperwork... but when you forget and they do hit you, it never leads to interesting game play. It's just more tediousness and paperwork. "Um... yeah, I'm going to need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday to fill out those TPS reports" the RPG.

It's such a tiny window where this stuff actually matters, and one player who's played the style at all will be able to cover the group, so it basically never manifests. But you have to keep doing all the paperwork forever because it might matter, some day. Blech. Keep it.

 

[Staffan]

As much as I love OSR-style play, I really hate the logistics mini-game. Mostly because it never really matters. It's neither fun nor interesting. You're forced to do all this pointless busywork so the referee can't hit you in the paperwork... but when you forget and they do hit you, it never leads to interesting game play. It's just more tediousness and paperwork. "Um... yeah, I'm going to need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday to fill out those TPS reports" the RPG.

Gygax did work as an insurance adjuster.