AD&D: There and Back Again - a Role-Player's Tale

[Fifth Element]

A long held opinion about something doesn't just change overnight.

It also doesn't change without reason, or at least it shouldn't. You simply haven't given us a reason to change it, because all of your examples have been countered and the best support you can provide is quotes from Wikipedia, one in particular of which no longer says what you think it says, because you were misintepreting the old version.

 

[chaochou]

In AD&D, if it wasn't defined by the rules it meant that it wasn't really meant to be possible. This is obvious by the fact that there is no unifying DC determination mechanic even hinted to in the 1st Edition game.

Can you tell us all when RPG rules using a unifying DC determination mechanic were invented? Because for your argument (and I use that word in the loosest possible sense) to have any validity at all, you must be claiming that Gygax had already invented such a system but discarded it in favour of what appeared in the original DMG in 1979.

Your 'argument' is the equivalent of this:
Napoleon must have intended to lose Waterloo. This is obvious from the fact that he didn't fire his nuclear warheads at the British and Prussians.

To deny this is to simply not understand the history of Dungeons and Dragons and it's evolution over the years.

rofl

 

[pawsplay]

I think I have hit a few nerves in here about this issue, with good reason. I'm challenging a principle that a lot of you have held firm to for a very long time. A long held opinion about something doesn't just change overnight.

It's even harder when your facts are wrong and your argument makes no sense.

The misconception that 3E is more restrictive than AD&D came about primarily because of a misinterpretation of what "old-school" meant. People like to lump "old-school" with AD&D, when this is fundamentally wrong. As Matthew Finch points out, Old School meant 0E. The game was free-wheeled quite a bit when the first paper back rules came out and this habit continued into AD&D, even though Gygax's intention was to eliminate the free-wheeled game to "tighten" things up.

That doesn't make any sense. Whichever game is more restrictive is a different issue than what constitutes "old school."

I've taken many of your arguments into consideration, but I still don't see it. The D20 Core mechanic was designed from the very beginning to give more flexibility to the D&D game system. These are not my words, they're the words of those who helped create D&D 3rd Edition.

That's using flexibility in a way that does not align with the "restrictiveness" you are talking about. d20 was designed to increase the breadth and fluency of d20, particularly in areas where rules are less codified, rather than to simply codify more things. Just as an example, AD&D2e and BECMI both have extensive rules for building and staffing strongholds, whereas 3e didn't even have such rules until the Stronghold Builder's Handbook, which was sketchier on rules and treated it more like a mapping/decorating project, to the extent it was ironically more useful for dungeon building.

You can look it up on Wikipedia, you can go back and look at the drawing boards and all the commentary made by the designers of 3rd Ed.

Yeah, I've read 30 years of Adventure, too. Worship me.

Their goal was to make the game less restrictive across the board: character creation, race class combos, skill gain, and encounter resolution. They were simply catering to the GMs that were playing 1st and 2nd edition that way. To deny this is to simply not understand the history of Dungeons and Dragons and it's evolution over the years.

They were offering more menu choices. They were not, however, injecting more subjectivity into resolution systems, which could scarcely be more subjective than the hodgepodge of "guidelines" codified in the original AD&D hardbacks. Having now examined an OD&D set and the Holmes set, I have a clearer picture of where AD&D was coming from than I did a couple of years ago. Yeah, codify the heck out of that mess.

But at no point was AD&D intended to be a mechanistic, no-you-can't system. On-the-fly rulings are written right into the rulebook, up to and including the effects of a character losing al their hit points (i.e. in the ordinary course of things, dying).

 

[Ariosto]

From Dungeon Module A4, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords:

This is an unusual scenario in that the characters start almost totally bereft of equipment and spells. Many players think of their characters in terms of their powers and possessions, rather than as people. Such players will probably be totally at a loss for the first few minutes of play. It is likely that they will be angry at the DM for putting them in such an “unfair” situation. They will demand or beg concessions. DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY HELP, even if they make you feel sorry for them. Inform the players that they must rely on what they have, not what they used to have, and that this includes their brains and their five senses. Good players will actually welcome the challenge of this scenario.

Thinking of characters as people, rather than solely "in terms of their powers and possessions" had always been part of the fundamental process of role-playing defining the nature of the game. The indications I have seen are not that the 3e designers wished radically to change that in either direction, but that a player-culture with different views on some points was very vocal about them. Those views were part of the input that informed new approaches in 4e.

Module A4 again:

However, this module is also a test of the ability of the Dungeon Master! It is a virtual certainty that good players, forced to rely on their own initiative, will attempt to use what they find to do things not covered by the rules. In these situations, it is entirely up to the DM to handle these requests with fairness, objectivity, and imagination. Some things the DM can think about ahead of time; for example, how will the party make light, or ropes, or mark their way? Consider such things, but be prepared also, for the players will probably think of things that never occurred to you.

 

[amerigoV]

[Aside, I am breaking my vow of posting after the second page in a thread. I firmly believe anything after page 2 of a thread is either worthless or off topic. In this case, I think it is both. But, its Friday, so what the heck]

I think I have hit a few nerves in here about this issue, with good reason. I'm challenging a principle that a lot of you have held firm to for a very long time. A long held opinion about something doesn't just change overnight.

Here's the skinny - Principle is the key word here. Its irrelevant. If you play 1e of any length of time you will either (1) houserule it to your liking or (2) find another game (and many of us did both)

This reason is exactly what you have been saying. In places, 1e is a very set "this is the number," especially in places like the thieve's skills. In other places, its bad (grappling rules - if you play those by the books...well, I'll be nice and not comment). In others, its just plain not there (disarming, and why all the stuff about attaching limbs for trolls when you cannot cut off a limb in combat?).

As soon as the thief comes across a deaf, dumb, and blind kid (who sure plays a mean pinball) the player is going to lobby for a bonus. If you grant it (as most would), then you have deviated off your principle. If you don't, then you eventually lose players.

We all had a notebook of houserules. I still remember our group eventually split HPs into "Meat" and Endurance and adjusted the rate of recovery because none of us wanted to play the Cleric (healbot). The problem is everyone had different house rules depending on what the players got into in the game. If someone liked thieves, you bet there was some rules modifying those percentages to do stuff. If your group was into combat, how things get chopped up got some special rules.

3e merely created a set of agreed upon house rules. I had about 3 minor house rules under 3.x - I just did not need them.

Thus, the "freewheeling" does not come from what is on the page, it comes from that fact in 1e the DM had to adjudicate more, and DMs all adjudicate differently. In 3e and 4e, there is a much higher probabilty of getting the same resolution (what to roll, DC, etc) than under 1e. Just read the modules - trap resolution were notorious in the varied mechanics, sometimes in the same module.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Conversely, I needed more houserules in 2e than 1e, and far more in 3e.

Of course, I also bowed out of this conversation once, but as I am often both worthless and off topic, what they hey, right? As you say, it is Friday.


RC

 

[pawsplay]

It's Friday!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0]YouTube - Rebecca Black - Friday (OFFICIAL VIDEO)[/ame]

Wow! Her hair sure looks nice at 7:00 AM!

 

[Thasmodious]

Man, this thread has made me miss 1e. Those were my formative years, RPG-wise, bridging the gap from pre-teen boy "heheh, breasts" to beginning to think in terms of story and character. In any of a hundred other threads we'd be arguing over whether many of these elements of 1e AD&D were good or bad (the differing subsystem, the nods to realism notable by the lack of nods to realism in related areas, etc.), but here it's just making me nostalgic.

 

[lumin]

Thus, the "freewheeling" does not come from what is on the page, it comes from that fact in 1e the DM had to adjudicate more, and DMs all adjudicate differently.

Agreed. Except I would replace the word "had to adjudicate more" to "choose to adjudicate more" (other than saying, "no you can't do that").

And this is where I and many here are having a miscommunication about this. I have been referring solely about the rules as they are written on the pages, NOT how DM's house-ruled them.

If you were to remove all prior play experience (I know that's impossible, but bear with me) and simply look at 1st Edition with no prejudice about "how" it has been run, you would see a game that is very strict in how its rules are laid out.

When I first cracked open first edition, having no prior experience playing the game, this is what I saw:
The rules are telling me that only a thief can pick a lock or hide in shadows. The rules are telling me that the only guy who can "handle an animal" is a druid or someone with a spell. The rules are telling me that this is what I will always roll to lift some bars. The rules are telling me this is what I will roll to force a door open.

I am sure that once you've run the game a few times, people are going to ask, "Hey Mr DM, I want to try make a rope out of this twine I found", and as a DM there will be no rule found for that in the book.

The point is that, in 3E, there WAS a pseudo-rule for everything imaginable: Roll a D20 + DM selected Ability Modifier. These were built-in rules for MORE freedom and flexibility. AD&D didn't have that.

So here's my point: The RULES in 3E provided the flexibility, whereas the DM in 1E provided the flexibility. See the difference? That's why I claim that 3E's RULES themselves explicitly provided a more free-wheeled game.

Now that's not to say that 1E eventually became more free-wheeled because DM House Rulings made it that way. But there was not a standardized "rule" for how you would manage DM rulings, if that makes sense (other than Gygax's disclaimer about making things up). In 3E we got the Core D20 system which standardized things that the books did not actually make clear. In other words, "free-wheeling" actually became a part of the rule system in 3E.

 

[billd91]

So here's my point: The RULES in 3E provided the flexibility, whereas the DM in 1E provided the flexibility. See the difference? That's why I claim that 3E's RULES themselves explicitly provided a more free-wheeled game.

And here's been the point of a lot of other people:

The rules can only explicitly cover a subset of things that can occur in the course of a D&D campaign. Your players can and will come up with more. By providing more rules structure to adjudicate broad situations, the rules in 3e are more defined, less inconsistent, and less free-wheeling than 1e which didn't have the broader structure.