[EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?

[Maggan]

(OSRIC turned into a Silver download from RPGNow within 3 weeks of being put up there... if all the OSRIC downloads from all the sources were included in that, OSRIC would be at least triple platinum, and possibly octuple platinum or more; I have no idea how many copies are floating around right now.)

What does that mean in numbers downloaded from RPGnow? 1000 downloads? 10 000? Just trying to gauge the amount of interest.

/M

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

What does that mean in numbers downloaded from RPGnow? 1000 downloads? 10 000? Just trying to gauge the amount of interest.

Trying to answer the question without threadjacking too badly...

I'm told that RPGnow ranks are:

Copper: 51-100
Silver: 101-250
Electrum: 251-500
Gold: 500-1000
Platinum: 1000+

I noticed that OSRIC had gone silver after 19 days, but it was probably earlier.

Best guess is that we're getting about 10 downloads a day off the RPGnow site, compared to roughly 50 a day off the main OSRIC site. There are about three other subsidiary sites and it's also appeared on peer-to-peer networks.

We think there are between 3,000 and 8,000 copies of OSRIC in circulation in total but that's really just an educated guess. With a free download it's very hard to track.

This is very small potatoes by 3e's distribution figures, of course.

 

[Hussar]

damage occurs to both groups regardless of what is inflicted.

That's a bit beyond English 101. That flat out doesn't even make sense. This isn't a case of the English being a little wordy, this is out right confusing.

The only thing 3e did really well was to reverse some of the "plot" and "story" assumptions from 2e. You know, the railroady DragonLance-style plots which were written in "Chapters" and contained long sections called "When things go wrong" which told the DM how to return to the hackneyed and formulaic progression of events which were supposed to happen when, inevitably, some bored player tried to exercise a bit of free will.

Those assumptions weren't there in early 1e. They crept in during what I call 1.5e -- the modules from 1983 and on started to take the onus away from the DM to create a proper game environment for the players to explore. Instead, the DM was supposed to tell the players what to explore, in what order.

I'd mostly agree with most of the latter half of that quote, except for the "only thing" bit at the beginning.

The question was asked and it still hasn't been addressed: What can I do in 1e that I cannot do in 3e? If the game is so different then there must be things I can do in 1e that I can't do in 3e. Comparing D&D to Vampire, for instance, there's a number of things D&D does better - rein in powergaming comes to mind right off the bat. It's pretty much impossible in any version of D&D to make uber characters at chargen. In Vampire it's rediculously easy. In fact, that's balanced by the idea that people who play Vampire are deliberately not going to try to powergame their characters.

Unlike many who've posted here, I welcomed 2e with open arms. I was so sick and tired of fighting the rules in 1e, that when 2e came out, I leapt away from 1e. Sure, 1e had great adventures, but, IMO, that's all it had. Mechanically it was very difficult for me to work with. Poorly laid out, frequently incomprehensible, and with a massive powercreep between Dragon and Unearthed Arcana, the idea that 2e was going to clean up the mechanics and streamline play made me a very happy camper.

Heck, I resisted going to 3e for quite a while because I was pretty content with 2e mechanically. It wasn't until I sat in on a 3e game and started reading some of the PHB that I realized that 3e had taken all the house rules and whatnot that I'd culled from Dragon and wherever else, buffed them up to a nice gleeming shine and made them better. And then it gave me about fifteen new goodies on top.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

The question was asked and it still hasn't been addressed: What can I do in 1e that I cannot do in 3e? If the game is so different then there must be things I can do in 1e that I can't do in 3e.

1. Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.
2. Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.
3. Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.
4. When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.
5. Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.

 

[cildarith]

1. Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.
2. Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.
3. Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.
4. When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.
5. Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.

Nice list.

6. Create a 10th level character in less than 5 minutes.
7. Create a party of 10th level characters in less than 15 minutes
8. Place the stat blocks for 9 player characters, 22 henchmen, 7 summoned monsters, 12 giants, a shaman, 35 worgs, and a cave bear on one piece of paper (and you'll still have enough room for the map)

 

[Kishin]

1. Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.
2. Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.
3. Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.
4. When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.
5. Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.

2, 4 and 5 are all doable. 1 is potentially doable, so long as the party is under say, 5th level. I can't speak to 3, as that's simply not how I play D&D.

6. Create a 10th level character in less than 5 minutes.
7. Create a party of 10th level characters in less than 15 minutes
8. Place the stat blocks for 9 player characters, 22 henchmen, 7 summoned monsters, 12 giants, a shaman, 35 worgs, and a cave bear on one piece of paper (and you'll still have enough room for the map)

6 and 7 result from the lack of options available to higher level PCs in 1E as compared to 3E. Personally, I think the fact that well over 75% of 1E characters of equal level and identical are mechanically identical except for things like spell choice (which is even debatable) and magical items makes things very, very dull, but that's getting into the realm of opinion.

I suppose if I really wanted to split hairs, I could say that a 3E GM could generate a party of 10th level adventurers using elite arrays and the examples provided in the DMG just as quickly, but again, that's splitting hairs.

Also, I want to see the piece of paper used in 8. If for no other reason than that it would be full of awesome.

 

[Numion]

1. Run a game for a dozen players without your brains dribbling out of your ears.
2. Resolve a melee involving nine player characters, twenty-two henchmen and seven summoned monsters on one side -v- a dozen giants with a shaman, thirty-five worgs and a cave bear on the other, in less than about two years.
3. Prepare an adventure on a single sheet of graph paper in twenty minutes, and expect to get many hours' play out of it.
4. When the players walk off the map you prepared, generate the surrounding terrain and encounters using random tables, and get results that make sense.
5. Let the player characters actually fight a dragon.

Dunno about 1 and 2 since I've never tried. 3 I've done at lower levels. 4 just sounds weird - I'd not do it even if I could. I might throw random encounters, but random maps? 5 I've done very many times.

EDIT: I could start a similar list with the editions reversed, but it just seems like a pissing contest.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

EDIT: I could start a similar list with the editions reversed, but it just seems like a pissing contest.

Eh, I posted in response to a specific question. But I'll bet you a billion dollars you can't post anything that 3e permits while 1e doesn't.

(Sucker bet. 1e explicitly assumes a DM who isn't afraid to tinker with the rules.)

 

[The Shaman]

Except for the fact that a number of those same "NPC's" were pre-gens intended for the players to play. Take the Heroes of the Lance as a prime example. Four fighter types in the original 8 characters and 3 of the 4 had 18 percentile strengths.

You're basing this criticism on Dragonlance pregenerated player characters? First, those are "PCs," not "NPCs" in any use of the term with which I'm familiar. Second, it's Dragonlance, an epic setting with characters to match. Third, generating a 17 or an 18 using the methods for chargen described in the 1e AD&D DMG isn't that surprising, and contrary to your earlier assertion, it's fully supported by the rules.

And, thank you for pretty much making my point for me. Why the heck should that be written like that and how could anyone possibly defend that as good game design?

I picked out eight rules quotations to (how do I put this delicately?) respond to your misapprehensions about a number of 1e rules, and you pick one as representative of the entire game?

Gary Gygax was writing to an audience that read the authors and works I cited above, as well as Leiber, Howard, Lovecraft, Haggard, Burroughs, et cetera. His evocative language maps to the game's source material. IMO this is why so many gamers write fondly about "1e flavor": because reading the rule books felt like reading a fantasy novel, not a tech manual.

If you believe that 3e has somehow done away with rules that are difficult to follow, you are of course welcome to your opinion, but in response I direct you to the ENWorld D&D rules forum.

As far as dwarves hating elves and vice versa - one group lives in large forests and the other lives under mountains. They don't even share the same real estate. How often could they actually come into conflict? This was only there because of Tolkein.

First off, they don't hate one another, per 1e AD&D PHB, p. 18 - both races reserve hatred for half-orcs. Second, dwarves cut down trees in large numbers - it's where charcoal comes from to operate forges and smelters. They also divert streams to run mills, pump groundwater out of mines, and dump mine tailings. All of these practices affect their relationship with elves. (And since when do hills and mountains lack forests?) Third, so what if the relationship between elves and dwarves was inspired by LotR? The magic system was inspired by Jack Vance, the alignment system by Michael Moorcock - what's your point, exactly?

Could you play a game in which elves and dwarves were bestest buddies? Of course - it's always been the province of the dungeon master to use the tools the game provides to create a distinctive setting. Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms were both someone's D&D campaigns before they were published settings, yes? Can we agree that both dungeon masters took liberties with the canon descriptions of D&D races?

...what about Howard, Doyle and Burroughs, none of which were high literature, dense or difficult to understand? Or should we simply ignore those inspirations?

No, no more than you've overlooked Lord Dunsany or Sir Thomas Malory.

Ok, now that I've stirred the pot sufficiently...

Stirring the pot? I thought it was a series of mispprehensions concerning 1e, based on fuzzy recollection and incomplete knowledge of the rules.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

He didn't. I seem to remember he was petitioned to include them (along with the Psionics rules) by well-meaning friends.



Funny, they're there in 1e. (NPC in 1e, PC in 1e+UA).

More seriously, I have my own restrictions on 3e choices when I run it to fit the style of campaign I want to run. There are certainly assumptions in D&D that you live with, and there are others you can modify. (So, no barbarians, monks or half-orcs in my 3e Ulek campaign).

Cheers!

Doh! I meant Wizards.