What follows is a somewhat long-winded personal story of my journey to RPG Nirvana, and how I got there. First let me get some of my personal RPG gaming background out of the way.
I was among the class of kids that never got to play D&D growing up. My mother was avidly against D&D and, like many, had heard all of the horror stories about the suicides and the rest of the hysteria at the time. I distinctly remember the month-long grounding I received as punishment when I spent the night at a friends house "watching" him play AD&D "Heroes of the Lance" on his NES (No, I didn't actually even play the game). That's how paranoid my mother was.
This was difficult for me, because I loved fantasy and I loved video game RPGs. I played a lot of Ultima, Wizardry, and any other CRPGs I could get my hands on no matter the platform. I also got into a lot of other fantasy-themed board games such as MB's HeroQuest, and Warhammer Fantasy. I'd spend hours and hours of my life painting miniatures and coming up with Home-Brew adventures while I could only drool over the AD&D books sitting on the shelves at my local gaming store.
I had a couple friends that did play D&D regularly and I would lap up every tidbit of info I could on what it was like. The sheer mystique and magic of the game was amazing to me, and even after never actually having "played" a game of it, it was difficult to even comprehend how it all worked. Through my inquiry, my friends would only share bits and pieces of their gaming sessions, like a shattered glass window that only showed part of the picture. But what I did take from it sounded absolutely amazing.
As life passed by, I forgot about D&D and moved on to other things like college and dating. I still played a lot of the RPG video games that were released, but I had all but forgotten about my desire to play P&P RPGs.
About five years ago, married with our first child, it suddenly dawned on me that I could finally obtain and experience what had eluded me for so long. I had really absolutely no experience in the genre and, as most people know, D&D is the gateway that many people enter the hobby with. So I ordered the 3.5 boxed set on Amazon and eagerly awaited the chance to finally experience the thing that I was enamored with in my childhood.
When I finally was able to dig into the rules and run my first game, something felt wrong. I couldn't really put my finger on it, but it seemed like the magic wasn't at all what I had expected from D&D. Don't get me wrong, I was able to run a few campaigns and still had some fun with it, but I never felt like I was truly involved in a fantasy world, as much as I was lawyering rules. 3.5e sat on my shelf for a couple years after that, never really seeing much playing time.
When 4th edition was announced I decided it wasn't for me. I'm sure the game plays like a charm, has great rules, and people will swear by it as the best edition to ever see the light of day. But I won't lie, nostalgia and "era" plays a huge part in my taste for RPGs, just as it does for music and movies. I grew up in the 80s and 90s where fantasy depicted in art and literature was dark, foreboding, archaic, "Dark Ages" influenced, violent/brutal, and bordering on the "occult". In a nutshell, it was extremly, out-of-this-world, "fantastical". 4th Edition is anything but: it's streamlined, colorful, video-game-like (gasp!) and made for a large, family-friendly audience. This is ultimately a matter of taste, but this is not Swords & Sorcery Fantasy to me.
Instead of purchasing 4th Edition, I went out and bought Pathfinder - believe that it would fix many of the problems I had with 3.5 Edition. And in many ways, with a few exceptions, it did. I still had minor quibbles with the fact that Rogues now could cast spells, and that Listen, Spot, and Search were all combined, but on the whole, it was an upgrade. Pathfinder didn't fix everything, however. Game sessions still felt bogged-down a lot of the time and there was still something intangible that was missing. There was way too much crunch in the system that seemed alien to the game that I heard so much about in the 1980s-1990s.
So I set Pathfinder aside and began scouring the web for inexpensive (or free) rules-lite systems. I tried Castles and Crusades, Microlite, Swords and Wizardry, and most recently Warrior, Rogue and Mage. While each of these held my attention for a little while, and got rid of the horrible crunch in 3rd edition, they all succumbed to the same problem: blandness. Without any tangible differences between the archetypes, every class, every encounter, and every game, started to feel exactly the same to me. "Roll D20, add your X to it against the GM's DC" became the endless theme.
I even dabbled with some of the setting-less systems such as Savage Worlds and GURPS, but they too began to feel pigeon-holed - a jack of all trades, but a master of none. Something was still missing in all of these games...which brings me to our present time.
A few weeks ago I was looking for a good random generation supplement to use in my Warrior, Rogue and Mage game. The books I had came with some nice tables for loot and monster encounters, but I still felt they were lacking. Among other recommendations, I was given the suggestion to pick up the old 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. So I thought, "okay, but that seems kind of like a waste of a DMG to only buy it for the tables". So I thought, what the heck, I'll go buy the 1st Edition PHB, MM, and DMG on E-Bay just to make it a set. At the same time, I decided it was time to sell my 3.5E Core set as well - as Pathfinder had all but replaced it. I thought that I had played my last game of D&D, when in fact I discovered I had never really played it at all.
I can finally say that I've found Table-Top Fantasy Role-Playing. For me, this is Dungeons and Dragons, REAL, PURE, BS-less, D&D. 1st Edition AD&D is the game I have been looking for my whole life. This is the game that I drooled over as a kid. The art, the fluff, the rules, everything.
I finally realized what had been bothering me so much about 3rd edition, the D20 system, and its ripoffs: Bottom-Heavy Difficulty Class Adjudication. Let me clarify. Most modern gaming systems employ a, "you can do it all" mentality to encounters. You're a Fighter and you want to climb that wall, jump off the chandelier and back-stab the Goblin? Give me a roll + Dex Mod. You're a Wizard and want to trip the Orc? give me a roll + Str Mod. This all sounds well and good, but the problem arises when GMs start assigning weakened Difficult Classes either deliberately, or subconsciously, to make a situation more exciting.
I've seen this happen many, many times in modern gaming. We've gotten so used to playing or GMing "Jack of all Trades" characters that without strict, set in stone, Difficulty targets, characters seem to get away with murder at every opportunity.
Here's the second problem that I've noticed in modern games, and this relates to the first. GMs have, by nature of the game rules, become Bottom-Heavy Rules Lawyers, constantly adjudicating rules, fudging dice rolls, and making things up. When you have player characters attempting things that they really have no business attempting, our games have turned into mashed potatoes where there is no consistency and "anything seems to go".
AD&D's rules were brilliant. Define everything that a player character can and can't do before the game even begins. If you're not trained in it, outside very few exceptions, you can't do it. In the very rare occasion that a character gets to attempt something he has no business attempting, you place extreme penalties on the roll.
To be free of the chains of rules lawyering is exhilarating. No longer, do I have to worry about how difficult each trap, lock, door, etc is. I have found that 95% of my effort in the AD&D campaign that I am running goes into the plot and story. AD&D is Top-Heavy - meaning, the most effort you will put into rulings will occur upon character creation and leveling. Everything that a player needs to know about overcoming a challenge can be found on their character sheet, not on "page 234, paragraph 2, line 3" as experienced in modern editions.
The differences really boil down to this:
Modern systems: Ability Score vs a DC set by the GM that will probably require him to either make something up (that's probably totally inaccurate) or pull out his books for 20 minutes while your gaming group gets up to go to the bathroom and get a snack while all gaming momentum has been derailed. Or you can follow WotC's advice and "just fudge the rules, to keep the game going".
AD&D: Look at your character sheet and roll, or "no, you're not trained in it".
Now, to rebut a couple criticisms I have seen about AD&D over the years. Most of it is completely overblown.
1. THAC0 : This is what terrified me about AD&D and what kept me away from it for so long. Yes, it does take a session or two to get used to thinking "low is good" and we subtract rather than add. On the other hand, there is actually much less math in the determination of THAC0 than what we have in 3rd edition. In 3rd, your "attack" score was calculated by adding your STR + DEX + modifiers - penalties (depending on the situation: circumstantial, illness, level drain, etc). In 1st edition, we simply look at a single table at character creation and at each level and never have to think about it again.
2. Combat look-up tables: Now this is one I don't fully understand. It is very clear that by the end of the DMG, Gygax had already begun to use THAC0 in the monster summary table. The combat tables are simply a step behind the author's eventual intention of using THAC0 full-tilt. So, when I hear people complain that they had to look-up the table every time combat occurred, they are missing the blatant AC 0 “to hit” score shortcut. There really was little reason to use the table again until a player leveled.
Beyond the rules, AD&D just feels right to me: the books are chock-full of fluff and flavor tables. Practically anything I can imagine envisioning in a classic fantasy world can be drawn from the books. Instead of loads of pages full of prestige classes, feats, and skills that I will never use, I have exactly what I need - all the tools I will actually use. I love the fact that non-human females have strength restrictions, I love the fact that the GM is allowed to kill his characters, I love the fact that I can roll up the stats for a harlot, or a Demon, and I love that it has the 1980s Swords and Sorcery style to it all.
And I need to say something about the writing. This is the first time I have ever read someone actually define what a Role-Playing Game is. I never got that from 3rd edition or any other RPG source - I never had anyone actually explain to me exactly what the "right" way was to role-play. I used to think Gary Gygax simply had a proof-of-concept that TSR, WoTC and others perfected. I still haven't read a source book that "gets it" better than what is written in the 1e DMG. I'm now seeing that Gygax is to RPGs as Tolkien is to Fantasy novels - they've never been truly surpassed. They were both geniuses at what they did.
Now, I'm sure that there are a lot of you out there who could put up a great argument as to why I am wrong. This isn't so much about reason or logic for me, but the way that I define an RPG. Unlike many who have been playing since 0E, 1E, or even 2E, I came into the hobby much, much later. So I don't have the nostalgia factor attracting me to the rules. But I do have a certain perception about what a real RPG is and I felt that the first time I played 3rd edition - something was wrong. I now understand what that something was and what I was missing out on.
I've come full circle, and realized that what I loved most about Fantasy Role-Playing was always there waiting for me to return to it.
I was among the class of kids that never got to play D&D growing up. My mother was avidly against D&D and, like many, had heard all of the horror stories about the suicides and the rest of the hysteria at the time. I distinctly remember the month-long grounding I received as punishment when I spent the night at a friends house "watching" him play AD&D "Heroes of the Lance" on his NES (No, I didn't actually even play the game). That's how paranoid my mother was.
This was difficult for me, because I loved fantasy and I loved video game RPGs. I played a lot of Ultima, Wizardry, and any other CRPGs I could get my hands on no matter the platform. I also got into a lot of other fantasy-themed board games such as MB's HeroQuest, and Warhammer Fantasy. I'd spend hours and hours of my life painting miniatures and coming up with Home-Brew adventures while I could only drool over the AD&D books sitting on the shelves at my local gaming store.
I had a couple friends that did play D&D regularly and I would lap up every tidbit of info I could on what it was like. The sheer mystique and magic of the game was amazing to me, and even after never actually having "played" a game of it, it was difficult to even comprehend how it all worked. Through my inquiry, my friends would only share bits and pieces of their gaming sessions, like a shattered glass window that only showed part of the picture. But what I did take from it sounded absolutely amazing.
As life passed by, I forgot about D&D and moved on to other things like college and dating. I still played a lot of the RPG video games that were released, but I had all but forgotten about my desire to play P&P RPGs.
About five years ago, married with our first child, it suddenly dawned on me that I could finally obtain and experience what had eluded me for so long. I had really absolutely no experience in the genre and, as most people know, D&D is the gateway that many people enter the hobby with. So I ordered the 3.5 boxed set on Amazon and eagerly awaited the chance to finally experience the thing that I was enamored with in my childhood.
When I finally was able to dig into the rules and run my first game, something felt wrong. I couldn't really put my finger on it, but it seemed like the magic wasn't at all what I had expected from D&D. Don't get me wrong, I was able to run a few campaigns and still had some fun with it, but I never felt like I was truly involved in a fantasy world, as much as I was lawyering rules. 3.5e sat on my shelf for a couple years after that, never really seeing much playing time.
When 4th edition was announced I decided it wasn't for me. I'm sure the game plays like a charm, has great rules, and people will swear by it as the best edition to ever see the light of day. But I won't lie, nostalgia and "era" plays a huge part in my taste for RPGs, just as it does for music and movies. I grew up in the 80s and 90s where fantasy depicted in art and literature was dark, foreboding, archaic, "Dark Ages" influenced, violent/brutal, and bordering on the "occult". In a nutshell, it was extremly, out-of-this-world, "fantastical". 4th Edition is anything but: it's streamlined, colorful, video-game-like (gasp!) and made for a large, family-friendly audience. This is ultimately a matter of taste, but this is not Swords & Sorcery Fantasy to me.
Instead of purchasing 4th Edition, I went out and bought Pathfinder - believe that it would fix many of the problems I had with 3.5 Edition. And in many ways, with a few exceptions, it did. I still had minor quibbles with the fact that Rogues now could cast spells, and that Listen, Spot, and Search were all combined, but on the whole, it was an upgrade. Pathfinder didn't fix everything, however. Game sessions still felt bogged-down a lot of the time and there was still something intangible that was missing. There was way too much crunch in the system that seemed alien to the game that I heard so much about in the 1980s-1990s.
So I set Pathfinder aside and began scouring the web for inexpensive (or free) rules-lite systems. I tried Castles and Crusades, Microlite, Swords and Wizardry, and most recently Warrior, Rogue and Mage. While each of these held my attention for a little while, and got rid of the horrible crunch in 3rd edition, they all succumbed to the same problem: blandness. Without any tangible differences between the archetypes, every class, every encounter, and every game, started to feel exactly the same to me. "Roll D20, add your X to it against the GM's DC" became the endless theme.
I even dabbled with some of the setting-less systems such as Savage Worlds and GURPS, but they too began to feel pigeon-holed - a jack of all trades, but a master of none. Something was still missing in all of these games...which brings me to our present time.
A few weeks ago I was looking for a good random generation supplement to use in my Warrior, Rogue and Mage game. The books I had came with some nice tables for loot and monster encounters, but I still felt they were lacking. Among other recommendations, I was given the suggestion to pick up the old 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. So I thought, "okay, but that seems kind of like a waste of a DMG to only buy it for the tables". So I thought, what the heck, I'll go buy the 1st Edition PHB, MM, and DMG on E-Bay just to make it a set. At the same time, I decided it was time to sell my 3.5E Core set as well - as Pathfinder had all but replaced it. I thought that I had played my last game of D&D, when in fact I discovered I had never really played it at all.
I can finally say that I've found Table-Top Fantasy Role-Playing. For me, this is Dungeons and Dragons, REAL, PURE, BS-less, D&D. 1st Edition AD&D is the game I have been looking for my whole life. This is the game that I drooled over as a kid. The art, the fluff, the rules, everything.
I finally realized what had been bothering me so much about 3rd edition, the D20 system, and its ripoffs: Bottom-Heavy Difficulty Class Adjudication. Let me clarify. Most modern gaming systems employ a, "you can do it all" mentality to encounters. You're a Fighter and you want to climb that wall, jump off the chandelier and back-stab the Goblin? Give me a roll + Dex Mod. You're a Wizard and want to trip the Orc? give me a roll + Str Mod. This all sounds well and good, but the problem arises when GMs start assigning weakened Difficult Classes either deliberately, or subconsciously, to make a situation more exciting.
I've seen this happen many, many times in modern gaming. We've gotten so used to playing or GMing "Jack of all Trades" characters that without strict, set in stone, Difficulty targets, characters seem to get away with murder at every opportunity.
Here's the second problem that I've noticed in modern games, and this relates to the first. GMs have, by nature of the game rules, become Bottom-Heavy Rules Lawyers, constantly adjudicating rules, fudging dice rolls, and making things up. When you have player characters attempting things that they really have no business attempting, our games have turned into mashed potatoes where there is no consistency and "anything seems to go".
AD&D's rules were brilliant. Define everything that a player character can and can't do before the game even begins. If you're not trained in it, outside very few exceptions, you can't do it. In the very rare occasion that a character gets to attempt something he has no business attempting, you place extreme penalties on the roll.
To be free of the chains of rules lawyering is exhilarating. No longer, do I have to worry about how difficult each trap, lock, door, etc is. I have found that 95% of my effort in the AD&D campaign that I am running goes into the plot and story. AD&D is Top-Heavy - meaning, the most effort you will put into rulings will occur upon character creation and leveling. Everything that a player needs to know about overcoming a challenge can be found on their character sheet, not on "page 234, paragraph 2, line 3" as experienced in modern editions.
The differences really boil down to this:
Modern systems: Ability Score vs a DC set by the GM that will probably require him to either make something up (that's probably totally inaccurate) or pull out his books for 20 minutes while your gaming group gets up to go to the bathroom and get a snack while all gaming momentum has been derailed. Or you can follow WotC's advice and "just fudge the rules, to keep the game going".
AD&D: Look at your character sheet and roll, or "no, you're not trained in it".
Now, to rebut a couple criticisms I have seen about AD&D over the years. Most of it is completely overblown.
1. THAC0 : This is what terrified me about AD&D and what kept me away from it for so long. Yes, it does take a session or two to get used to thinking "low is good" and we subtract rather than add. On the other hand, there is actually much less math in the determination of THAC0 than what we have in 3rd edition. In 3rd, your "attack" score was calculated by adding your STR + DEX + modifiers - penalties (depending on the situation: circumstantial, illness, level drain, etc). In 1st edition, we simply look at a single table at character creation and at each level and never have to think about it again.
2. Combat look-up tables: Now this is one I don't fully understand. It is very clear that by the end of the DMG, Gygax had already begun to use THAC0 in the monster summary table. The combat tables are simply a step behind the author's eventual intention of using THAC0 full-tilt. So, when I hear people complain that they had to look-up the table every time combat occurred, they are missing the blatant AC 0 “to hit” score shortcut. There really was little reason to use the table again until a player leveled.
Beyond the rules, AD&D just feels right to me: the books are chock-full of fluff and flavor tables. Practically anything I can imagine envisioning in a classic fantasy world can be drawn from the books. Instead of loads of pages full of prestige classes, feats, and skills that I will never use, I have exactly what I need - all the tools I will actually use. I love the fact that non-human females have strength restrictions, I love the fact that the GM is allowed to kill his characters, I love the fact that I can roll up the stats for a harlot, or a Demon, and I love that it has the 1980s Swords and Sorcery style to it all.
And I need to say something about the writing. This is the first time I have ever read someone actually define what a Role-Playing Game is. I never got that from 3rd edition or any other RPG source - I never had anyone actually explain to me exactly what the "right" way was to role-play. I used to think Gary Gygax simply had a proof-of-concept that TSR, WoTC and others perfected. I still haven't read a source book that "gets it" better than what is written in the 1e DMG. I'm now seeing that Gygax is to RPGs as Tolkien is to Fantasy novels - they've never been truly surpassed. They were both geniuses at what they did.
Now, I'm sure that there are a lot of you out there who could put up a great argument as to why I am wrong. This isn't so much about reason or logic for me, but the way that I define an RPG. Unlike many who have been playing since 0E, 1E, or even 2E, I came into the hobby much, much later. So I don't have the nostalgia factor attracting me to the rules. But I do have a certain perception about what a real RPG is and I felt that the first time I played 3rd edition - something was wrong. I now understand what that something was and what I was missing out on.
I've come full circle, and realized that what I loved most about Fantasy Role-Playing was always there waiting for me to return to it.
