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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sanguinemetaldawn" data-source="post: 2046224" data-attributes="member: 23390">1st Ed feelWhat 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 masteryThere 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.</blockquote>

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