Any of you pine for AD&D 1/2?

[Plane Sailing]

I do not beleive this is an established universal fact at all.

maybe not "established", but I can see a clear difference between the two play styles in my experience.

1. Combats in 1e were quick to resolve, in 3e they take much, much longer to resolve

2. In 1e it took *forever* to gain a level - which tended to mean that you spent much longer at any given level so we tended to have a lot more adventures against the same set of foes in order to overcome them. There was also IME less of a hankering after XPs... sure everyone wants the xps, but the low amount required for each level in 3e has tended to focus players minds on the xp more.

2b. Since it took so long to gain a level in 1e, our adventures were more likely to be about role-playing the achievement of temporal power in one way or another - that tended to be one of the main currencies of advancement. I don't see that nearly as much in 3e.

To sum up - when I played 1e there were far fewer die rolls and more descriptive stuff, and combats tended to last more melee rounds but were quicker to resolve.

Cheers

 

[Ourph]

Should I forget my daydream of playing the older editions again? Should I stick to 3/3.5?

Do whatever makes you happy. Personally, I'm quite happy playing in a 3.5 game run by one of my good friends and DMing/playing B/X D&D or 1e with another group and my wife (who's letting me run a solo B/X campaign with her ). There's no reason you can't enjoy multiple versions of the game.

Personally, I LOVE one of the things that most people seem to hate about B/X/1e - the combat matrices and saving throw tables.

They make customization a snap. If I want a 4th level kobold thief, I just assign him an "attack as" (ex: attacks as a 5th level thief) and a "save as" (saves as a 5th level thief) and roll his HP. Those three little lines are all I need in my notes. Everything else is on my DM screen when I need to roll.

Having run 3rd ed for about 4 years before swearing off of it for good, I can honestly say the most useless piece of gaming material I ever bought for my game was my 3.0 DM's screen. Other than hiding my stuff and providing a place to tack up maps and monster stats, it served absolutely no purpose in my games. The main reason for its uselessness in my hands was the fact that 3e doesn't use combat matrices, save tables or thief ability tables. In a system that does use those things, the DM screen is my most used, most valuable tool.

The other thing I like about using the matrices is that players don't need to note their attack values, saves or thief skills on their character sheet. Character creation takes a lot less time and writing that way.

However, I realize I'm in the minority as far as my love o' tables goes.

 

[francisca]

Do whatever makes you happy. Personally, I'm quite happy playing in a 3.5 game run by one of my good friends and DMing/playing B/X D&D or 1e with another group and my wife (who's letting me run a solo B/X campaign with her ). There's no reason you can't enjoy multiple versions of the game.

Well said. Seems we're in a similar boat, I run 3.5 and B/X, play in 1E.

However, I realize I'm in the minority as far as my love o' tables goes.

I'm quite neutral on tables vs. target AC. 6 of one, half dozen of the other. What I still don't understand is THAC0. Not how it works, I just don't understand what wa so awful about charts that provided motivation for THAC0.

 

[Henry]

[In my experience] 1. Combats in 1e were quick to resolve, in 3e they take much, much longer to resolve

2. In 1e it took *forever* to gain a level - which tended to mean that you spent much longer at any given level so we tended to have a lot more adventures against the same set of foes in order to overcome them. There was also IME less of a hankering after XPs... sure everyone wants the xps, but the low amount required for each level in 3e has tended to focus players minds on the xp more.

2b. Since it took so long to gain a level in 1e, our adventures were more likely to be about role-playing the achievement of temporal power in one way or another - that tended to be one of the main currencies of advancement. I don't see that nearly as much in 3e.

To sum up - when I played 1e there were far fewer die rolls and more descriptive stuff, and combats tended to last more melee rounds but were quicker to resolve.

Cheers

I would agree that 1e and 3e encourage different styles of play, but I disagree WHERE they differ.

The more I read people's individual experiences with the two games, the more I wonder if WotC didn't poll enough people, or had a handicap with the bodies they DID poll. From my experiences, it seems they had MY problems in mind when they built the game:

1. Combats were LONGER, not shorter, mostly because of the every-round random init roll, and people trying to decide what to do , and the DM having to come up with rules on-the-spot to determine what to do

2. Progression was indeed slow - so much so that we never got higher than 6th to 9th level before a year's time was up, and circumstances changed that made us abandon the campaign. At home, I have a book of every character I played from 1987 (when we played 1e) to 1999 (the last time I played 2E). Only two of them were 9th level; every other one was between 3rd and 6th level.

Now, I've played in at least two games that topped at 11th level, and one that topped at 18th! It's doubled our level range for characters before we tire of them. We never played for temporal power, through our fault or our DMs, we never sought castles, or political influence, or other wealth types, instead roaming from adventure to adventure, LONGING for the day that we wouldn't have to sweat kobold or orc fights, and could leave codependence on sticking near the fringes of civilization. The only 2E game I ever played in that PC's amassed any power, was one that I RAN myself. When it ended, the heroes were called on to defend a nation from an invading force by managing the defenders. They tired of it quickly.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I certainly never minded THAC0 thought from the complaints I've read on this board you'd think that it was the spawn of satan. In the end the mechanic is still the same in 3X... you still want to roll as high as possible to beat a difficulty number. AC 15 in 3E is only 5 points away from the starting AC of 10... in 1/2E the same AC would be AC 5 which is still only 5 points better than the base of 10. In both instances you still want to roll a dice number 5 points better than needed to hit the base AC of 10.

I've also heard many people complain that you never knew if you wanted to roll high or roll low. They extoll the virtues of 3E that you always want to roll high. That is well and good but once again I never had a problem nor experienced any confusion on what I needed to roll. I DO miss the Strength Percentages for an 18. In 1/2E that percentage was what gave the warrior classes a much needed advantage in melee combat over the spell slinging classes.

I miss Class Specific XP bonuses. I also miss different level progression charts for the different classes. Rogues used to zoom through the levels to make up for their weak combat abilities. Balance between classes was enforced through XP cost... now it is enforced through giving the classes special abilities. I still don't see how a 3E Rogue is or should be the combat equivalent of an equal level Fighter. With all the new feats and PrCs I'm sure that someone here could easily create a Fighter slaying Rogue. Call me old fashioned but I liked the old system.

 

[Henry]

A couple of comments about the tables in 1E:

...Personally, I LOVE one of the things that most people seem to hate about B/X/1e - the combat matrices and saving throw tables.

They make customization a snap. If I want a 4th level kobold thief, I just assign him an "attack as" (ex: attacks as a 5th level thief) and a "save as" (saves as a 5th level thief) and roll his HP. Those three little lines are all I need in my notes. Everything else is on my DM screen when I need to roll.

In my experience, chucking the tables didn't hurt much, because they have the same things now in the PHB chapter 3. Better yet for me, they're mathematically progressive, so I don't even need the charts. To use the example, my kobold thief has +3 to attack, about 8 rogue skills at +7, and 4d6 hit points. He's not perfectly legal, but then he wasn't in those days, either.

...The other thing I like about using the matrices is that players don't need to note their attack values, saves or thief skills on their character sheet. Character creation takes a lot less time and writing that way.

However, I realize I'm in the minority as far as my love o' tables goes.

One thing that used to drive me batty about my players years ago was that two or three of them used to NEVER write anything down combat-wise; they'd add everything up only AFTER they would roll... every time. I used to extoll them on the virtues of writing down modified THACO and saves, so they could tell me quickly what they'd hit, or what they rolled to save, but every single time it would take 10 to 15 seconds while they'd count up, then subtract, and THEN do they same thing for damage.

One thing I'm forcing them to do now is MAKE them write up their Melee and Ranged Attack bonuses, and damages, or have another player keep track of them. It saves me from pulling hair out in frustration... not that I have any left to save...

 

[Ourph]

One thing that used to drive me batty about my players years ago was that two or three of them used to NEVER write anything down combat-wise; they'd add everything up only AFTER they would roll... every time. I used to extoll them on the virtues of writing down modified THACO and saves, so they could tell me quickly what they'd hit, or what they rolled to save, but every single time it would take 10 to 15 seconds while they'd count up, then subtract, and THEN do they same thing for damage.

Great googly-moogly do I know YOUR pain!

One of the players in our bi-weekly 3.5 campaign uses the very latest, most detailed, incredibly complete character generation/tracking software available.

He comes to the table with a character sheet 6 pages long.

Yet he has to add up (on his fingers no less) his attack bonus, damage bonuses, sneak attack dice, skill modifiers and spell DCs EVERY FRICKIN' TIME!!!

For the love of......You've got 6 frickin' pages of character sheet there! You've got a separate individual entry for every ARROW so you can cross them off as you use them. SURELY it wouldn't be that hard to note your Attack Bonus total SOMEWHERE on one of those pages!

 

[RFisher]

When 3e came out, I thought it was exactly what I wanted. It was very similar to my own attempts to revise D&D. I adopted it whole heartedly. I argued with naysayers on rec.games.frp.dnd as to why they should give it a try.

But I became increasingly frustrated with it. I won't go into any of the wherefores. I don't even know if my analysis of why is accurate. All I know is that it was frustrating for me.

On the other hand, over the years I've come to appreciate the logic behind classic D&D and AD&D. I've found it isn't as illogical, inconsistant, or unrealistic as I used to accuse it of being.

So, now, I find the 1981 Basic/Expert (B/X) sets to be not only my favorite edition of D&D, but quite possibly may favorite roleplaying game. (Classic Traveller scores highly as well.) I'm working on a new campaign world & running occasional one-offs until I get a chance to start a full blown campaign. I'm enjoying it all so much more than I was enjoying 3e.

Now, that's all speaking from the DM PoV. I enjoy playing 3e. (Although, I might enjoy other games a bit more.) I'm currently playing in a 3.5 campaign that I'm enjoying a lot. (Incidentally, it might have been a OAD&D campaign, but I think I put the kibosh on that when I threatened that, if we played OAD&D, I'd insist we use the weapon v. armor adjustments. )

I use a homebrew world with B/X D&D. I do not think classic D&D was created for Mystara. Rather, I'd say it was the other way around. OD&D was born from both Arneson's Blackmoor & Gygax's Greyhawk. B/X was founded heavily on OD&D, but was clearly, I think, meant for homebrew worlds. The many OD&D campaigns around Lake Geneva then were each set in homebrew worlds rather than Greyhawk or Blackmoor.

(Well, they were all set in worlds that were substantially similar. "World" may not be the best word, though, as they were sometimes seen as different regions of the same world. PCs could travel from Greyhawk to Blackmoor to Lendore to Aquaria to Kalibruhn. Plus, they shared a lot of aspects: Usually the same races & monsters & spells &c.)

What became Mystara had its birth in the 1981 Expert set. It was clearly, as I read it, merely an example and not considered the canonical setting it evolved into as they continued to locate modules in it.

I do think it is sad that--since classic D&D, AD&D, and 3e are really different games--that they shouldn't all be in print as separate products instead of being considered different editions of the same product.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I miss things and don't miss others. Primarily I miss the magic of 1e/2e/basic etc. The magic was flat out more magical, now its more mechanical and flat out more boring. In the old days it was easy to develop stories for adventures develped around 1 spell. Now in 3e the spells are dry and lack any ability to develop plot hooks around them with just a couple exceptions.

But hey I mostly like monster stats(there great except they basically made the poly spells impossible to balance), the save system actually means that at higher levels you can fial a save so some spells actually get used, the skill system helps add depth to a charcter, and feats add in combat amneuvers that never existed before.(I'd prefer the removal of feats and just the ability to pull off combat maneuvers, with maybe if feats existed they gave you a bonus towards instead of the ability to do)

But then there are the problems, as said magic is less magical, the feat parade weakens the game and balance goes out of whack, and they add the really dumb feats that make it impossible to do simple tasks without the feat. For example while I like the feel of eberon(I think I'll run a fantasy hero game with it) what freakin trained chimp thought it would be a good idea to add a feat to gather physical evidence with the search skill. At most that would be a new use for an old skill, but quite frankly I thought it did it already. But low and behold aparently search is by itself just the find trap and secret door skill and not actually the ability to search for things. The game is balanced way too much around combat and not by what the class delivers to the overall success of an adventure. I got other problems but at the moment I can't think of them. So bye,

 

[Corinth]

I became a gamer on October 10th of 1981. I've been an active gamer since then, so I've played the previous editions. There's no way that I'd ever go back; the consistancy of the rules now ensures that the GM and the players are always playing the same game in the same way, and no longer need I worry about the abuses that so often come with ad-hoc rulings because the engine itself is solid and robust enough to handle all that one needs to handle without pulling it out of thin air.