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Message: <blockquote data-quote="trollwad" data-source="post: 3733985" data-attributes="member: 19187">SPOILERS BELOWDIFFICULTY.  I do think that many of the classics were very difficult.  There was much less fretting over whether something "was an appropriate threat."  As a player, you felt a sense of accomplishment, if you merely survived Tomb of Horrors, the Giants/Drow series etc.  DYNAMISM.  On a related note, because they were generally short and because the statblocks weren't as unwieldy, many of the classics were more dynamic than modern modules -- the Delve format is probably a great example of how some 3e products degenerate into pure set piece battles.  Back to the classics, think for example, of the humanoids in Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, they have a strategy, they move from one area to the other if a noisy incursion is made, etc.  Think of Strahd in the original Ravenloft, he may have different motivations, the whole is set up for him to make guerilla attacks in a variety of directions.  Think of the smugglers in Saltmarsh, especially on the ship.  If the PCs do this, they do that.  If they attack from another direction, they do something else.  If the PCs try to bluff their way on board they do something else. If the PCs are too stupid to figure things out, they simply sail away.  Note, the well regarded 3e module Red Hand of Doom manages to be somewhat dynamic but I cant think of too many other 3e modules like that.SHORT and EASY TO MASTER/ALTER.  The classics are generally short.  It is much easier for a DM to master a module and then add creative touches if it is 8, 16 or 32 pages than if it is 192 pages and all of the stat blocks are gigantic and all of the components of such stat block interrelate to each other.  It was easy to move Nosnra or Strahd and others around because their stats fit on an index card.  That is no longer true with modern villains.LOVE of PLAYING Vs. RULEMAKING.  To me, in some intangible way the classics reflected authors who loved PLAYING the game (or perhaps killing those who played the game).  There are still some good module writers out there (e.g. mona, jacobs, logue) but it seems like all of the fuss is over designing rules, not creating cool places to play in.  Why are the Hill Giants having a drunken feast in Steading?  Because its cool to sneak around or to have a brawl in a feast hall with drunken giants!  Why is there an Ice Chasm in the successor module, because at least pc or npc needs to get thrown off a cliff and eaten by an ice worm!  Why is the ToH a death trap, because Gygax's players were getting cocky and they needed a serious challenge.  Why is the Iron Golem in Maure Castle so horrible?  I dont know but it creates a serious challenge for PCs to circumvent him and/or defeat/escape him.  Is it "fair" within the "rules", no and who cares, as long as the Classic DM does this sparingly.  Is it "fair" that Erik Mona put a beetle swarm in a first level dungeon  -- this is literally against the CR rules for D&D (I consider Whispering Cairn to be a 3e classic in the vein of the old classics)?  No, but he does it sparingly and it serves to make the PCs worry, scout, prepare, consider running.The biggest thing I've noticed both in reading about and playing old time or new classics and the bulk of 3e stuff, is that sense of danger -- oh s--t, we may die.By the way, I dont really consider KoTB to be a classic certainly not by comparison to Hommlet, Saltmarsh and the Cult of the Reptile God.</blockquote>

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