Back in the day...

[Aaron L]

I couldn't imagine a game like that. Limited is an understatement.

 

[diaglo]

How can you play D&D without the Thief as a class or at least the availability of stealthy skills

No Fahfrd and Grey Mouser, No Conan and the Tower of the Elephant, No Thieves World -- No Robin Hood -- need I say more ?

I can see not liking "thief" as a class but the skills are essential to a goodly amount of the literature

who said that those guys don't exist.... just b/c they aren't a class?

how can you play D&D without keeping your mind and your options open?

no limits on the imagination... just limits on the rules.

 

[WizarDru]

who said that those guys don't exist.... just b/c they aren't a class?

how can you play D&D without keeping your mind and your options open?

no limits on the imagination... just limits on the rules.

I once knew a guy who told me about how Ultima and many other games of it's ilk had "a lot of orcs". I asked what he meant. He told me: "Ultima is full of orcs. There are the regular ones who carry swords and look like ugly people. There are the ones who float in the air with one big eye and some smaller ones, and they call them beholders...but they're still just orcs. There are some with wings that can breathe fire...but they're orcs, too." His point was that just because you dress something up differently, if it uses the same mechanic and behaves the exact same way, it's not really a relevant distinction.

Having a person be a thief or a rogue merely by having them say, "I"m a thief!" is little more than a "let's pretend" session, to me. Now I remember why so many players in the early 80s focused on their stats as a major source of RP inspiration....under previous systems, it was really the only identifying statistics that an individual PC had, mechanically, to separate Conan, King Arthur, Gilgamesh, the Grey Mouser, Vlad Taltos and Elric.

Of course, if Diaglo had his way, we wouldn't even be using dice....just those cardboard chit-things. Yikes.

 

[hong]

I once knew a guy who told me about how Ultima and many other games of it's ilk had "a lot of orcs". I asked what he meant. He told me: "Ultima is full of orcs. There are the regular ones who carry swords and look like ugly people. There are the ones who float in the air with one big eye and some smaller ones, and they call them beholders...but they're still just orcs. There are some with wings that can breathe fire...but they're orcs, too."

Nooo!!! It's not true! It's not true!!!1


*cry*

 

[diaglo]

Of course, if Diaglo had his way, we wouldn't even be using dice....just those cardboard chit-things. Yikes.

if you want to believe that all characters are the same b/c they follow the same mechanic that is your choice.

however, where in my post does it say that just cuz a player says "I'm a thief" makes him one.

it still boils down to working out the character with the referee and the player. which means customization. something d02 claims to do. but which i think it fails.

edit: i happen to love my dice. and use them more than when i play d02.

 

[diaglo]

Nooo!!! It's not true! It's not true!!!1

it's okay. Lord British is only an orc if you use the boat to kill him

 

[Plane Sailing]

How can you play D&D without the Thief as a class or at least the availability of stealthy skills

No Fahfrd and Grey Mouser, No Conan and the Tower of the Elephant, No Thieves World -- No Robin Hood -- need I say more ?

I can see not liking "thief" as a class but the skills are essential to a goodly amount of the literature

The point is, OD&D didn't have a thief class. The thief and the paladin were introduced in the first supplement (Greyhawk) to the original 3 books. Before that you had fighting man, wizard and cleric as your options (and the cleric didn't get any spells until 2nd level!)

 

[rogueattorney]

I couldn't imagine a game like that. Limited is an understatement.

It's entirely limited from one point of view. It's completely unlimited from another point of view. To those who confine their conception of their character to what's on the character sheet, it's limiting. To those who see the limits of having too much stuff on the character sheet, it's completely unlimited. Maybe I'm getting too zen here...

When one of my players complained about there being no elvish thief class in my B/X D&D campaign, I told him that if he wanted to be an elvish thief, he should be an elf that steals stuff. He quickly realized that infravision plus such spells as Sleep, Ventriloquism, Levitation, and ESP makes for a very effective thief, even if he isn't actually a "thief".

R.A.

 

[WizarDru]

if you want to believe that all characters are the same b/c they follow the same mechanic that is your choice.

however, where in my post does it say that just cuz a player says "I'm a thief" makes him one.

Well, I took that idea, to some degree, from your previous post, where you said essentially that 'if you want to be a thief, then go ahead and steal" and viola, you can call yourself a thief. How do I know that someone's a thief? Well, he's a fighting man and he's got a high Dex, I guess? If you're talking about the DM customizing the game and the character to accomdate that, then you're talking about a set of house-rules against a codified system, and that's likely to work better for some and worse for others.

All this time, have you been talking about non-standard OD&D?. Or was that the standard way to play OD&D? It hardly makes for a fair comparison between OD&D, 2e and 3/3.5e, IMHO. But I can ignore the book and make house-rules in any system, so I don't see much of a difference, there.

 

[diaglo]

All this time, have you been talking about non-standard OD&D?

all this time. i've been talking about what Merric posted on this thread. i've been on topic.

i've been talking about the way we played/play OD&D. which as Merric noted was why Gary codified Advanced. and which is why i disagree with Gary.