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

[clearstream]

Indeed. I also have some pages of houserules for AD&D, but the idea of writing a game from scratch is daunting and beyond my skills and my tenacity.

Well, you can start with your core mechanic and build out from there. But for sure it is a huge undertaking. And the value of doing it is not the gain between what you achieve and zero, it is the gain between what you achieve and what you might have found in the work of others. It is that latter consideration that has stayed my hand: I never felt really convinced that what I had added much that was remarkable to the genre.

Although that is not precisely true. I started the first diceless game that I know of in my (large) gaming circle and that went on to inspire a friend to create an even better version. This was before Amber. Part of it I think is simply opportunity and access to good help and tools. NZ was quite a bit behind the US for that. I guess I am saying that my approach to starting from scratch was to minimise what needed to be built

 

[Lanefan]

Well, rest and recovery wouldn't be my example of choice, as 5e is advancing a fix to one of the more pernicious problems for RPG mechanics... the 5MWD.

Which I've never seen as much of a problem, at least certainly not to the hand-wringing extent others seem to.

Even repeated 5MWDs can wear a party down if the recovery rates are slow enough.

4e included overt efforts to address the same thing. Part of the problem is that systematising it results in bookkeeping overhead and harm to suspension of disbelief, while not systematising it may not effectively constrain mechanically minded players.

Thing is, if a 5MWD is what the adventurers would realistically end up doing, and if they find or clear out a safe place to rest, who am I as DM to stop them?

Couldn't agree more. 3e was also very thoroughly stitched together. It's one of the things that seems really misunderstood about 5e. Just because the system plays in a streamlined fashion using many extensively play-tested and highly robust mechanics, it sometimes feels like people ironically end up being somewhat dismissive of RAW. Being "sophisticated" in this space entails that the feats of engineering should be less visible. That should lead to cherishing them, not dismissing them!

I'll happily dismiss any RAW, no matter how streamlined and-or robust, if it doesn't do what I want it to do where and when I want it done.

Take advantage/disadvantage in 5e. Great mechanic, simple, streamlined, ticks all the boxes. And completely overused in many situations where a more complex mechanic (usually a flat bonus or penalty) would do a better job; in which cases I'd dismiss and replace it. (in math terms, adv-disadv takes linearity and turns it into a distorted bell curve, where a flat bonus-penalty shifts the whole thing while leaving linearity intact)

As I think you already know and apply, the individual DM therefore is best served by solving for their specific problems. With all the various concerns and implications of that.

Agreed, as what's a problem to one DM might be a solution to another.

 

[S'mon]

1st level Unearthed Arcana 1e AD&D PCs in my current game seem vastly more powerful than 5e level 1 PCs; they are roughly equivalent to level 4 in 5e I'd say. But the amount of magic is much lower, though extremely powerful when used. The feel is very different from 5e; both higher powered and grittier. With little magic, fights tend to be more like '80s sword & sorcery film battles than flashy videogame fights.

 

[clearstream]

Which I've never seen as much of a problem, at least certainly not to the hand-wringing extent others seem to.

I think you mean problem in a different sense then I do, right? For you it is not something in any urgent need of a solution. I mean that if it is something a designer wishes to solve, it is hard to do so.

Take advantage/disadvantage in 5e. Great mechanic, simple, streamlined, ticks all the boxes. And completely overused in many situations where a more complex mechanic (usually a flat bonus or penalty) would do a better job; in which cases I'd dismiss and replace it. (in math terms, adv-disadv takes linearity and turns it into a distorted bell curve, where a flat bonus-penalty shifts the whole thing while leaving linearity intact)

So true. I miss the circumstantial +/- 2 of 3e.

 

[Lanefan]

1st level Unearthed Arcana 1e AD&D PCs in my current game seem vastly more powerful than 5e level 1 PCs; they are roughly equivalent to level 4 in 5e I'd say.

Yeah, UA (1e) classes were a horror show, as was its bizarre roll-up method. The only one I adopted was a toned-down version of the Cavalier; and it had a proper 0th-level version baked in as written!

But the amount of magic is much lower, though extremely powerful when used. The feel is very different from 5e; both higher powered and grittier. With little magic, fights tend to be more like '80s sword & sorcery film battles than flashy videogame fights.

In general I'm sure this is true, though doubtless some will soon jump in with anecdotal exceptions...

 

[Lanefan]

I think you mean problem in a different sense then I do, right? For you it is not something in any urgent need of a solution. I mean that if it is something a designer wishes to solve, it is hard to do so.

I'd go further and say it's impossible to solve without either telling DMs how to run their games or telling people how to play their characters, both of which should be free choice.

So why worry about it?

So true. I miss the circumstantial +/- 2 of 3e.

I'd miss just being able to assign situational bonuses or penalties and having them logically stack....

"You're swinging around on a rope, holding on with one hand while you try to attack Begbob - who you can barely reach - with the rapier in your other hand? OK. The motion of the rope (and thus you) puts -2 on your to-hit attempt, and you'll be -1 more due to reach. Oh, and forget about any Dex bonuses to hit on this one..."

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, UA (1e) classes were a horror show, as was its bizarre roll-up method. The only one I adopted was a toned-down version of the Cavalier; and it had a proper 0th-level version baked in as written!

In general I'm sure this is true, though doubtless some will soon jump in with anecdotal exceptions...

Yeah, I'm just describing my current game. PCs start with max hp at 1st level. Lowkey13's new Mulhorandi Ranger-1 PC has CON 17 & 22 hit points, I described him as a well known hero, scourge of the desert wastes - at 0 XP!

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I'm just describing my current game. PCs start with max hp at 1st level. Lowkey13's new Mulhorandi Ranger-1 PC has CON 17 & 22 hit points, I described him as a well known hero, scourge of the desert wastes - at 0 XP!

His slogan must have been "I was there too."

 

[clearstream]

I'd go further and say it's impossible to solve without either telling DMs how to run their games or telling people how to play their characters, both of which should be free choice.

Say there was a mechanic that says you can't wear plate armour because your strength ability score is too low. Isn't that telling people how to play their character, just as much as it would be to mechanically define the meaning of "resting"?

The objection seems to say there a mechanical rather than narrative method for managing rests should be preferred, because a narrative method risks telling people how to play their character whereas a mechanical method will be no different from the mechanic for their AC on wearing certain armour. It's a constraint. Constraints are what make games.

"To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude]." -Suits

 

[Lanefan]

Say there was a mechanic that says you can't wear plate armour because your strength ability score is too low. Isn't that telling people how to play their character, just as much as it would be to mechanically define the meaning of "resting"?

No.

Saying you need to be a certain strength, or combination of strength and bulk, in order to effectively wear plate armour is perfectly realistic. It makes sense.

But telling players that their PCs aren't allowed to rest (or that DMs are instructed to disturb that rest until some peg-point is reached) when logic and self-preservation would say that they should isn't realistic at all, and makes no sense other than from a perspective of pure small-g gamism.

The objection seems to say there a mechanical rather than narrative method for managing rests should be preferred, because a narrative method risks telling people how to play their character whereas a mechanical method will be no different from the mechanic for their AC on wearing certain armour. It's a constraint. Constraints are what make games.

Other way around. My objection is that mechanical management of rests forces undue and unwarranted constraints on to the players and-or the DM; where narrative management - with the players in this case controlling the narrative and making the decisions - has no such problems.

I agree that constraints make games, but those restraints have to make sense in the context of what the game is trying to achieve.

A chess rook can only move in straight lines, while a bishop can only go diagonal. These are constraints that make perfect sense in context, that context being the game is trying to force the players to think their moves out within those constraints.

But D&D isn't just trying to achieve this, it's also trying to achieve a state where players and the DM between them control what happens in the fiction. Mechanical resting constraints fight this control

Another example of the same thing would be the game forcing a particular method of in-party treasury division, instead of leaving it up to each individual party/table to determine its method for itself.