Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 5935658" data-attributes="member: 3887">It certainly was among the gamers I knew back in the 1980s, playing AD&D and then 2e (or some hybrid thereof). Creating a personality for a new 1st level character was only slightly less important than rolling stats. Backgrounds were more optional. But showing up without a name and some idea of who this fictional character was would have earned you derisive laughter from my pals. After all, we weren't playing a board game...Sure we would. Because there's been a segment of the audience that has no desire to run through 20 unnamed, interchangeable 1st-level PCs before managing to get one to 2nd level. These players want to start the game with a personality, with ready characterization, and possibly even a few goals/motivations. High lethality at 1st level, which sends that back the drawing board almost immediately does not serve them well. And this has nothing to do with the edition.OK. Regardless of edition played, start your PC with 3 HP. Easy-peasy!.Tae Kwan Do is a skill which can objectively measured. Through violent confrontation. D&D playing is not. The only objective measure of D&D play is the still subjective measure of whether how well you entertained yourself and your fellow players at the table. Why can't I give you XP for this! There ain't no justice.And let's remember that the Dragonlance modules didn't introduce this style of play to D&D. The Lord of the Rings did. Dragonlance is best seen as a reaction to a part of the audience desiring a style of D&D play which more closely resembled the epic fantasy novels they enjoyed, the fiction which, in many cases, led them to D&D. Everyone I knew who was into fantasy read Tolkien and his imitators. Their knowledge of Conan was limited to the Arnold movies. And no one had heard of Vance or Leiber.In AD&D, a broadsword does a maximum of 8 pts. of damage, barring STR bonuses.I've seen plenty of 1st level AD&D characters with 8+ HP at 1st level. A ranger with no CON bonus, rolling for HP, would have an average of 9.So 1st level AD&D characters aren't vulnerable (at least fighters, fighter subclasses, cavaliers, cavalier subclasses, and barbarians)? Whose authentic D&D experience are we talking about? It's already clear mine and yours are fairly different. While I'm not fan of long (and insipid) backstories, remember, we're all playing D&D. Let he who is not pretending to be an elf cast the first stone. Because, as I pointed out, some of them can! <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=":)" /> Old-school D&D can be deadly, but stories of its' unrelenting grittiness have been greatly exaggerated.</blockquote>

Verification