Can someone explain what "1st ed feel" is?

[Sanguinemetaldawn]

1st Ed feel

What follows is a serious attempt to answer the question posed by the OP.
The idea of "First edition feel" is based on the supposition that something was lost after 1st Ed. AD&D.
To that extent, what follows can be construed as an attack on 3E D&D, BUT THAT IS NOT THE INTENTION.
My intention here is simply to answer the question.

If others feel the above supposition is incorrect, it would be my pleasure to discuss the topic in a gentlemanly manner. Topics raised in this post could serve as a suitable starting point for such a discussion. That said, to the issue at hand...





What you are really asking for is a condensation of the art of PnP game design, applied to 1st Ed.

The art of game design is not an easy thing to articulate or even understand. Many people play games, and they just know they "like" one game and "don't like" another. And thats good enough for them. But why? They can't tell you.
Gygax mentions this on his thread running concurrently...what gives a game its "soul"?

I don't know if I can explain 1st Edition feel, I will give examples of what created the feel...

....using Conjure Elemental which summoned a very powerful servant, but a dangerous one...who could turn on you. To protect yourself from this, you could employ a thaumaturgic triangle, or a pentagram.


.....On page 117 of the DMG, the description of how to make a scroll of Protection from Petrification. The ingredients (1 oz. giant squid sepia, 1 basilisk eye, 3 cockatrice feathers...6 pumpkin seeds) and the preparation method (...dry the seeds over a slow fire of sandalwood and horse dung...select three perfect ones...Boil the basilisk eye and cockatrice feathers...in a saline solution...add medusa snake venom and gem powders...).


...finding a single spell scroll, you could get as many as 8 different spells of various levels (including those above your own level), and *you could cast them*.
When you got a scroll it could be a VERY big deal.
A scroll could be a powerful magic item in its own right...now its a 1-use spell X.
Playing through ToEE, my 6/5 grey elf cleric/mage used scrolls of Limited Wish (7th mage) and Heal (6th cleric) to Resurrect a party member. The DM ruled that the combination of the 2 spells would let me.


Its these trappings...the mystery, the wonder, and the fear. The imagination.



And magic items like the Deck of Many Things or Ring of Shooting Stars. I honestly believe that by the design philosophy of 3E, those items would never exist. Here's why:

How do you make a Deck of Many Things?
Do you enchant each card? Do you enchant them all at the same time?



Do you see how this affects the game? If the system doesn't support it...it doesn't happen. The feeling I get is:

-1st Edition is about the primacy of imagination..."if there isn't a rule for something cool, you make it up"
-3E is about the primacy of the rules..."if there isn't a rule for something you think is cool, you can't do it"

I am not asserting that these are facts. I am saying that this is the feeling I get when I play 3E. The above statements are really a result of looking at 3E in the worst possible light.

Having a plentitude of rules to cover all situations is definitely helpful to a harried DM who wants a quick solution. The problem is that "having a rule everything" means that the game is pre-defined, and the larger the structure, the more constricting the effect. The explicitness of the system can be confining. Especially when rules-lawyers and their rules-fu get involved. ("My rules-fu is the best!")


First edition feel is:
-The coolness created by the odd, quirky (custom) rule outweighs the additional complexity/difficulty that results.
-Applied to the game consistently, it creates a different play dynamic than rules-fu mastery



There are definite issues with 1E...like the different bonuses to AC from armor, vs cloaks, vs rings...etc. That was a pain, and confusing. I wholeheartedly love the stacking rules...that is just one example of something done right in 3E. And I have horror stories about 1E I could tell. In the hands of a sadist DM, AD&D is a NIGHTMARE. This doesn't doesn't seem to be as true for 3E.



What frustrates me is it feels like 3E wasn't able to keep the good while eliminating the bad. Instead of 1 imperfect system, we now have 2...and I don't like either of them. This looks like an unintended consequence of a laudable goal: to simplify the system.



I think the reason such anger enters these discussions is there is only one D&D. There is only one system that is actively supported by the owner and publisher of the D&D game. And everyone wants it to be THEIR D&D.

For some people, clarity, simplicity, and options are most important. For others, distinctiveness, mystery and wonder are most important. And many of those feel left out in the cold by new D&D. Personally, I don't have a version of D&D that I like...there are only varying levels of dislike.

 

[maddman75]

This is one of the things that frustrate me the most about the edition debate. Many people approached earlier editions with the attitude of "if the book doesn't say you can do it, you can't do it" which is exactly the opposite of the philosophy behind the game as far as I can tell from comments made by Gary, Frank Mentzer, Steve Marsh and others who have talked about their approach to the game and creating the rules. Thieves could Hide in Shadows and Climb Sheer Surfaces. Those are very specific abilities to which other classes didn't have access. Nothing in the rules says that a Fighter can't hide behind a barrel or climb a tree with adequate handholds with some chance of success. Nothing in the rules says how the DM should determine that success, but that doesn't mean it cannot or should not happen. The fact that we had those misperceptions as kids or as inexperienced first-time roleplayers is quite understandable. The fact that so many people still hold onto those misperceptions (not directing this at you maddman) and use them as a basis for criticizing older editions is unfortunate and, in some cases I believe, ingenuous.

Like I said, I think its a perception thing based on the person's experience with the game. Which led to so many arguments on Dragonsfoot.

1e is Rule Light - look how fast you make characters and how small the statblocks are!
1e is Rules Heavy - Look at the initiative rules and weapon vs armor modifiers!

 

[mmadsen]

I think this statement is pretty accurate -- but more for Original/Basic D&D than for first-edition AD&D:

The feeling I get is:

• 1st Edition is about the primacy of imagination..."if there isn't a rule for something cool, you make it up"
• 3E is about the primacy of the rules..."if there isn't a rule for something you think is cool, you can't do it"

The explicitness of the system can definitely be confining:

The problem is that "having a rule everything" means that the game is pre-defined, and the larger the structure, the more constricting the effect. The explicitness of the system can be confining.

For many people arguing about various editions of the rules, the debate becomes partisan: are you for or against my favorite edition? Really, we should be asking, what did each edition get right? Even if you prefer 3E to 1E, I'm sure there are elements of 1E you 'd prefer. (Or vice versa.)

What frustrates me is it feels like 3E wasn't able to keep the good while eliminating the bad. Instead of 1 imperfect system, we now have 2...and I don't like either of them. This looks like an unintended consequence of a laudable goal: to simplify the system.

So true:

I think the reason such anger enters these discussions is there is only one D&D. There is only one system that is actively supported by the owner and publisher of the D&D game. And everyone wants it to be THEIR D&D.

 

[maddman75]

I think this statement is pretty accurate -- but more for Original/Basic D&D than for first-edition AD&D:
The explicitness of the system can definitely be confining:
For many people arguing about various editions of the rules, the debate becomes partisan: are you for or against my favorite edition? Really, we should be asking, what did each edition get right? Even if you prefer 3E to 1E, I'm sure there are elements of 1E you 'd prefer. (Or vice versa.)

Okay

For me, here's what 3e got right
- The multiclassing rules! Finally, no more having to plan multiclassing from first level, no lame excuses for why an elf couldn't decide to become a thief, and why a human couldn't start as a fighter/mage.
- Cyclic initiative, one less thing I have to roll for.
- Feats and PrCs. These serve an important function - premade 'slots' for expansion material to go into. This is much less disruptive to the game system over time than adding whole new rule subsets.
- Consistant ruleset. No more roll high for this, low for that, d20 for this, d100 for that, d6 for this weird racial ability.
- A skill system that made sense. The proficiencies were wonky and inconsistantly applied to various AD&D rules.
- Full abilties for monsters.
- Less arbitrary unfun rules, like a chance to die everytime someone cast Haste on you.

Here's what it got wrong, that 1e did better
- Not enough flavor to the rules. The 1e PHB is entertaining, if dense, to read. THe 3e PHB is like reading stereo instructions. The game rules are mostly rock solid, but they aren't as evocative.
- Stat blocks that are short and sweet. 3e benefits from having fully detailed monsters, but could greatly benefit from some mook rules.

 

[Aris Dragonborn]

1st Edition feel, to me, was Stormbringer, Excalibur, the Final Answer Swords, the Regalia of Might, the Rod of Lordly Might, the Rod of Seven Parts, the Hand and Eye of Vecna, and the Sword of Kos. It was fighting the hordes of Orcus, the servants of Lolth, and armies of undead serving some Lich (good liches need not apply). It was paladins and cavaliers, assassins and thief-acrobats, wizards and illusionists, monks and bards. It was killing the guards as you ascended the tower stairs, knowing that the BBEG was waiting for you, and wondering how you were going to beat him.

IMHO, 3E has done a good job of getting back to the basics of the dungeon crawl, of evoking the feel of 1E. It is versatile enough that you can run a campaign with that 1E feel, or a story heavy campaign where whole sessions might pass without rolling the dice. I have actually done both, and they were fun. A lot of fun.

 

[Pielorinho]

Daniel,

I have a question, not meant as flame etc because we all have our likes and dislikes in our D&D games. I play 3e in a friends 3e group, and I enjoy playing it:

If the corridors bother you doesn't the 3e's "cyclical/round robin" initiative system and magic item creation bother you at least as much?
....
So I do know where you are coming from about the corridors…but I think a well ran game with good players, over comes that sort of thing for most of us regardless of if it's OAD&D or 3e. I like playing both 1st ed and 3e, and to me 3e feels more like 1st ed than 2e does.

Okay, I'm gonna try to discuss this, but I'm not gonna argue whether the corridors make any sense.

Rules stuff doesn't bother me much, as long as there's some justification for it. Hit points are fine, for example. Round-robin initiative is just another way to recognize that not everything happens at once.

And I love magic item creation. In our groups, we tend to reward creativity with item creation: an umbrella painted with an imperial dragon that can cast Quench 1/week and provides +2 deflection AC and can be used as a disarming weapon will cost less in our games than it should by the rules, by virtue of being nifty, whereas you gain no such benefits for creating a bag of tricks.

All editions have their benefits and drawbacks. In my own experiences, 1E adventures put a smaller priority on plausible motives than did later adventures, made you work harder to come up with plausible motives. They put a higher priority on really cool rooms and such.

But that's just my experience with them.

Daniel

 

[Pielorinho]

BTW - Daniel, I live in North Carloina and am not that far away from where your located. Your welcome to sit in and play with one of my OAD&D groups if you wish. After all we can have a character ready to game with in minutes.

I just saw this very kind offer--thanks! Unfortunately, my gaming time is very limited these days; although that does sound like fun, I've gotta pass. Maybe we can carpool to one of the NC gaming days sometime, though, and play OAD&D then? (despite how I've probably made it sound, I have tons of great memories of playing OD&D and 1E).

Daniel

 

[DMH]

For me the feel had to do with the power level and rarity of the classes. 12th level people were powerful leaders and there was just a handfull of people above 15th on the whole world. Wizards (12th level+) were a small enclave of people with maybe 2-3 members per nation and 5th level rangers lead small armies to stop the orc hordes. PCs could be world shakers.

And most importantly- they stayed human (or demi-human). They may have become powerful in terms of combat and connections, but they were still fragile against powerful beings like arch devils and solars.

As much as I like Oathbound for its flexability, I do miss the days when an old dragon or lich was to be feared by all.

 

[Doug McCrae]

This is part of what makes it a great system for getting grim and gritty. How much grimmer can you get than, save or die when put forth in the right context of the story?

Old skool D&D is grim, but it ain't gritty. It's a crazy pseudo-medieval funhouse where the clowns bite your head off.

 

[francisca]

Old skool D&D is grim, but it ain't gritty. It's a crazy pseudo-medieval funhouse where the clowns bite your head off.

As opposed to 3e? Besides, Grim and Gritty or pseudo-medieval funhouse styles of play have more to do with how the DM runs the game than the ruleset.