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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orcus" data-source="post: 51360" data-attributes="member: 1254">First edition feel...I guess I dont see it as anything like Diablo. Instead, I consider Diablo to be a mind-numbing influence of computer gaming on table top playing. I hate Diablo and I hate its influence on roleplaying. For example, in Diablo, the goal was to clear out every room on every level. That isnt the point to me.In addition to echoing all the points made by the good Colonel, I want to add the following:First edition is about heroic roleplaying. And if there is a lack of story, that is because the DM sucked. 1e gave people breathing room. It didnt do all your thinking for you. D&D is a creative exercise. That is the fun. Fill in the blanks with your OWN imagination. Also, 1e was a time when we actually made our own campaign worlds. With 2e, that all changed.For those of you who think 1e didnt have story, I use this analogy:Think of Star Wars. That is classic 1e roleplaying: a band of heroes with a noble objective, descend into a pit of evil (death star) against overwhelming odds (tons of stormtroopers), to retrieve a princess (you know who) and a legendary artifact (death star plans) with a dramatic encounter with an evil cleric at the end (Vader).That is a classic 1e adventure. How can you say there is no story there? Or that story is irrelevant?Here is what we do in making modules: we detail the death star. The fact that the user decides to say "ok you land at the death star and start killing stuff" doesnt mean there is no story. It means they opted NOT to have any. And that is OK.We just dont do your story thinking for you. A dungeon (like the death star) is a setting for high fantasy sword and sorcery adventure. You have breathing room to think for yourself and make it what you want it to be.I know there are many who would say "then why buy it if I have to do that work." I guess I would say "why play D&D if you dont want to do that work?" For me, the fun of D&D IS doing that work. I dont presume to know what your players or your world or your campaign is like--and 1e products didnt either. Only you can fill that in. It isnt unreasonable of us to leave that to you. In fact, I always found it insulting when designers forced stuff on me.So think about it like this:First edition: We provide the death star, you provide Luke, Han and company and the reason they are there.Another key factor is the source of the "feel". For example, go read Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories. Or the original REHoward's Conan. Or Moorcock's Elric. THAT is what we are trying to recreate with 1e feel.Certainly it is a divisive issue. When I started Necromancer I considered riding the fence and risking pleasing no one. I chose to make the type of products I liked (cause, hey, I wanted to have fun <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ) and decided to take a focused approach. I like challenging adventures of heroic proportions. I have absolutely no desire to worry about coffegrowing elves. To me that is a sociology experiment, not D&D. But hey, that is the joy of d20! To each his own! I fully respect all who dont like 1e. They are just as "correct" in liking what they like as I am in liking what I like. Perhaps one day there will be a company that is "Third Edition Rules, Second Edition Feel" that will make really setting specific adventures with forcefed stories that arent very challenging and are written for a party of rapier wielding bards with no combat skills. But that isnt my cup of tea.By the way, whoever mentioned Emerikol the Chaotic gets two thumbs up from me. That was one of the most evocative pictures ever (plus by my all time favorite artist Trampier).Clark</blockquote>

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