AD&D 1E Edition Experience: Did/Do you Play 1E AD&D? How Was/Is It?

[nevin]

This part makes sense to me.


This bit surprises me; I read Gary as extremely prescriptive in many parts of the 1E PH and DMG. He definitely says you can and should customize the rules once you understand them, but he also spells out best practices and modifications to OD&D play procedures and expectations in a very opinionated way, like how he gets really negative about monster PCs in contrast to how he was encouraging of them in 1974 OD&D. He tells us over and over again what a "well planned" and "well judged campaign" looks like and how it should be run. Sometimes in all caps, like when he tells us that when you have an open world game with different PCs operating independently, that "YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT."

This is in strong contrast to, particularly, 2nd ed. Which goes out of its way over and over to say "you could run it this way, or that way, whichever the DM prefers".

And then he put in the rule book it was all up to the DM what to use and what not to use. He also over the years contradicted himself many times. And there were other people that wrote those rules and weighed in. Home was just one of the voices, in spite of the internet mythology that says otherwise.

 

[The Soloist]

I’m reading the DMG as I am playing solo. Everything is burried and renamed. I have POD books, so I’m highligthing the important parts. The term Turn Undead is not used in the phb and is called Matrix Cleric Affecting Undead in the DMG. I had the reread the Tables and Charts index three times to ´discover’ it. I felt like an archeolists trying to reconcile two ancient languages (BX, AD&D)

 

[nevin]

As wargamers who played hex & chits games before AD&D 1e, we did play a few sessions with weapon speed, weapon vs armor and segments, etc. It was decided by the group to drop speed and armor modifiers becaused it slowed the game too much and killed the immersion but we kept round segments and spell components. Playing BX before AD&D did influence our decision.

Round segments and the way surprise worked made magic far less reliable and sneaky classes far more swingy. Some things just worked better in 1e. A surprise round where your party or the orc could get 3 full rounds of attacks on you could swing the battle for good or bad. Mage casting 9 segment spell meant high risk of failure.

 

[nevin]

I’m reading the DMG as I am playing solo. Everything is burried and renamed. I have POD books, so I’m highligthing the important parts. The term Turn Undead is not used in the phb and is called Matrix Cleric Affecting Undead in the DMG. I had the reread the Tables and Charts index three times to ´discover’ it. I felt like an archeolists trying to reconcile two ancient languages.

The 1e feels like 3 game systems cobbled into one quickly.

 

[kermit4karate]

And then he put in the rule book it was all up to the DM what to use and what not to use. He also over the years contradicted himself many times. And there were other people that wrote those rules and weighed in. Home was just one of the voices, in spite of the internet mythology that says otherwise.

I picture Gary furiously scribbling his thoughts for some of the sections in the older books on napkins and the backs of envelopes in his car after playing sessions with his friends and colleagues, late at night in his Ford Pinto parked under a lone streetlight, just angrily writing with a stubby, teeth-marked #2 pencil, "YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT."

 

[The Soloist]

The 1e feels like 3 game systems cobbled into one quickly.

I've read that the DMG was written in a 'steam of consciousness' mode because Gygax was under a lot of pressure to get it out. Editing was minimal.

Also, we know that Gygax believed, wrongly, that if he rewrote D&D with enough changes and add-ons, he could exclude Dave Arneson from IP royalties. Gygax lost in court.

 

[The Soloist]

Round segments and the way surprise worked made magic far less reliable and sneaky classes far more swingy. Some things just worked better in 1e. A surprise round where your party or the orc could get 3 full rounds of attacks on you could swing the battle for good or bad. Mage casting 9 segment spell meant high risk of failure.

Yes, it was very scary or elating depending on how things unfolded.

 

[The Soloist]

Of course, when you're 15 years old, you are both incredibly shallow while also believing that you're deeper than the Marinas Trench. NO ONE CAN FEEL AS DEEPLY AS ME!

I translated High Gygaxian into, "RESPEKT MAH AUTHORITAH!"

Or, as Gygax might put it, "As ultimate arbiter of the world, the rules, and, perforce, all that is wholesome and benefitting the weal of society, you might on occasion encounter players who will find more enjoyment in spoiling a game than playing it, thus ruining the fun for the rest of the participants. Such a consummation of foolish desire is to be prevented. The more intelligent players who are prone to pout or to use use the books as a defense when you rule against them should be excluded from the campaign with extreme prejudice. The less intelligent players who disrupt the campaign regardless of the obvious consequences you inflict upon them will soon remove themselves from play in any event, for their own ineptness will serve to have players or monsters or traps finish them off."

Sometimes, the players took care of the 'problematic' player by killing their character. I've had to happen twice during my 1e DM tenure. They left and never came back.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sometimes, the players took care of the 'problematic' player by killing their character. I've had to happen twice during my 1e DM tenure. They left and never came back.

Either a naturalistic or passive-aggressive way of addressing that kind of problem, depending on your POV (or, I suppose, both).

 

[The Soloist]

Either a naturalistic or passive-aggressive way of addressing that kind of problem, depending on your POV (or, I suppose, both).

It was very openly agressive in one case. He was a cheater, liar, manipulator and verbal bully. Unredeemable. We were 15-16. He was older by 7 years and believed he 'controlled' our group.