Diaglo: What's so great about OD&D?

[Wormwood]

I think of it as sort of the Grand Theft Auto effect. In GTA, if you like racing games you can enter all the time challenge missions and unlock new cars. If you like exploring, you can wander around the map and find hidden objects. If you like random havoc, you can get a rocket launcher and blow stuff up. The game lets you define fun, then lets you pursue that definition.

That's one of the best explanations I've seen in a long time. Nicely stated.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

How is this different from any other edition of D&D? This sounds exactly like what most of us do today.

That was my thought, too.

I can respect diaglo's play style, but I do not see any particular reason to favor older editions when doing so.

Just relegate all the Core (and expansion) books to DM-only references.

IMNSHO 3e is a tour de force of some simple and solid principles of game design. If I wanted to play an extreme KISS style I would use the foundations of 3e mechanics as inspiration and simply put aside the volumes of details. I do not see how refering to any of the older editions would be a benefit.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The bigger point, IME, is:

* The Power to Improvise: When you have to improvise rules on the fly, or sit down and create house rules, it's a lot easier to build exactly the game you want. The most powerful virtue of RPGs is the creativity they require. When you play an RPG, you get to create a lot of stuff. Since you are creating this stuff, by definition it's:

A) What you need.

and

B) Material you like.

It is also a lot of work when I would rather be designing interesting adventures tailored to my particular party. I would rather pay good money and let someone else do that grunt work.

I think many people are cowed by the volume of 3e material. There is no logical reason that you cannot just use the 3e material as inspiration and get every advantage you ascribe to 1e.

Why is it so many people make the illogical presumption that keeping a 3e PHB in your backpack is an impediment to improvisation?

 

[Numion]

Funny thing though that people see freedom from the rules as a positive side for OD&D, because we turned away from D&D back in the day because it was restrictive as hell. Classes had lists of what they aren't allowed to use, cant do .. I was glad these were mostly fixed in 3E.

 

[Rassilon]

If "Ghost Recon with Elvis" bothers you . . .

Is how I initially read that, and I thought, damn ! I want to play Ghost Recon with Elvis . . . it doesn't bother me at all.


Rassilon.

 

[MonsterMash]

Diaglo,

A few more questions:
1. do you use minis for combat resolution?
2. If I recall correctly from the story hour you are using the three core books, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry and some stuff from the Strategic Review, please confirm?
3. House rules - how do you handle these?

 

[Plane Sailing]

A selection of restrictions from various editions of the game:

Quite a few of those don't apply to OD&D, since they refer to races (gnomes) or options (dual classing) that didn't exist then. Races weren't classes either in OD&D, that came in Basic D&D.

Cheers

 

[philreed]

Is how I initially read that, and I thought, damn ! I want to play Ghost Recon with Elvis . . . it doesn't bother me at all.

Gives the "Flying Elvises" (Elvi?) a whole new meaning. Watch out work, the Elvises are out to kick your ass!

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Then C&C hit and I found somethign that was made for my style of play and instead of wasting time beating 3e into shape I could spend that time doing more productive things.

And as diaglo said, the edition/C&C cultists start coming out.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm actually playing C&C right now - with some modifications. But my point was that people will come full circle. They'll want the rules simplicity, but by the same token, they're going to be reluctant to give up on those things that they do like - the flexibility that 3rd edition grants them, for one thing.

My current group is looking at the dual/multi-class rules for C&C in Castle Zagyg, and I jokingly asked if it would be easier to start with 3rd edition, and remove rules, than to start with C&C and add rules back in! One thing you can say about 3rd edition is that it's built on a fairly solid foundation, and you can kind of work with it a little easier.

By the time I got done looking over what I would have to cut out of 3e to make it something I wanted to play I found I was just trying to make 3e into 1e. So we went back to 1e. Then C&C came out and seemed to mix the things I liked about 1e with the core mechanic of 3e, so we switched over to that. So far so good.

I don't really have much more to add to this. I just posted because I'll admit that I get a little annoyed when people imply that the only reason people play older editions or different games than 3.x is due to nostalga and not due to fun. As if people really know deep down that 3.x is better and are letting thier nostalga override the crazy fun they would have if they just embraced the 3.x style. Diaglo is correct when he states that OD&D is the only true version, since at his table it is and that is pretty much all that needs to be said.