Explan DMG First Ed. to me!

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Heh, I remember a post of RPGnet of a downright Gygaxian way of dealing with Rules Lawyers. The DM said that only his books were the One True Books. Whenever the rules lawyer got into a big debate over a paticular rule, the DM would take the Pencil Of Doom and draw a line through the rule in question. It no longer exists. If the player backed off from his rule-lawyery ways, then eventually the rule may come back through the Eraser of Life.

THAT ought to be on the first page of the PHB and DMG.

 

[Raven Crowking]

My problem with what you and others here are saying, is that you can't say something good about the 1e DMG without insulting (unfairly) the D&D3 material. You can't say, "I like the style, mood, and vocabulary of the AD&D1 DMG," without adding a slap at D&D3, "because the D&D3 DMG is dull, dry, and like reading stereo instructions."

Well, for the record, I really enjoyed the addition of "in-jokes" in the 3.0 DMG for those of us old enough to remember 1st Edition...and young enough to remember it clearly.

There certainly were problems with the 1st Ed DMG. Most of them related to Gary Gygax's ego, as I recall, and the attempt to monopolize the hobby, keep players out of the DMG, etc. Of course, some of that last was probably good advice -- a good fantasy world has things going on that the inhabitants do not understand.

It seems clear to me that 1st Edition was created with the classic great works of fantasy in mind, along with a solid helping of folklore, fairy tales, and the like. 2nd Edition was rather scientific, more concerned about the ecology of the beholder than how to use one to challenge adventurers. Conversely, 3rd Edition feels more like a video game or action movie. The word "cinematic" continually creeps into conversations about 3.X games, whereas 1st Edition was a lot more "literary." The 1st Edition DMG went so far as to give you a suggested reading list to understand where the ideas came from.

1st Ed was Conan, the Grey Mouser, Elrond, and Jack Vance. 2nd Ed was travel guides and sociology (remember Volo? Elminster? All those modules where the PCs sometimes ended up being spectators to the important scenes while the NPCs did stuff?). 3rd Ed is Jet Li, Warcraft, and Everquest.

You can set up a campaign in any one of those styles using any of those rule sets, but the fluff (and, to a degree, the rules) point in specific directions. Heck, so did the art. (Compare the 1st Ed DMG artwork to the 3rd Ed DMG artwork inspired by it.) Eberron, for example, would have been difficult to set up in either previous rule set. All of the cheap magic items in 3rd Ed would make playing in a typical 1st Ed-type melieu difficult using that rule set.

Is there any doubt that 3rd Edition offered a more "bare bones" system? Although the World of Greyhawk deities are used, and you gain some insight to the mindset and names of various PC races in the PH, the writers seemed to be trying to minimize the fluff. They even used the OGL so that you could create and publish your own fluff...a marked improvement over 1st Ed, sure, but it is in part the fluff that people are talking about when they wax nostolgic about the 1st Edition "feel" or complain that 3.X is dry. 3.X is intentionally not evocative in the way that 1st Ed is.

Me, I don't like the ease of aquiring magic in 3.X. However, it as easy to houserule that in 3.X as it was to houserule other things in any other edition.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think the GM fiat/common-sense approach makes games with good GMs better, and games with bad GMs worse - for every good 1e GM there was likely a monty-hauler or killer-GM. 3e is the quality-control version; you don't have to be a talented GM to run an acceptable 3e game, but running a brilliant 3e game I think may be harder than in 1e.

Nah. For every good GM there are a handful of poor GMs. However, both the 1st and 2nd Ed DMGs really did try to offer materials to "train" DMs. I find this somewhat lacking in 3.X. While some of us may not need it any longer, I for one enjoy reading DMing advice. In fact, one of the things I miss about Dragon (and hope will one day appear in Dungeon) is articles that not only give new rules systems, or new examples of characters/sites/prose, but rather articles that encourage the creation of new things from the rules system. Some of the greatest of the early Dragon magazine articles included (IMHO) "Let There Be a Method to Your Madness" and Ed Greenwood's early articles on campaign creation (including the Deities article where the original Forgotten Realms pantheon first appeared).


RC

 

[Saeviomagy]

THAT ought to be on the first page of the PHB and DMG.

"No, that's not how swimming works"
*DM produces Pencil of doom*
"I don't care, it's still not what the rule says"
*DM removes rule*
"Great, now none of us can swim. We all drown. Hooray"

To be honest, I think most incidences of rules lawyers are more a problem with the DM than with the rules lawyer...

 

[Ourph]

To be honest, I think most incidences of rules lawyers are more a problem with the DM than with the rules lawyer...

You're kidding.....right?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I prefer consistant rulings from DMs myself, and that includes when I'm DMing.

It's ok, if you've got a DM that's fair, isn't out to kill the party, and so on when the rules are being made up on the fly. That doesn't really bother me.

Consistant rulings, and ruling on the fly the first time a situation comes up, are not mutually exclusive. Part of the DM's job is to take notes...what was the innkeeper's name that I had to invent? Who was the Duke of the Lonely Castle looking for? Etc., etc.

But I don't like gaming with DMs that have a sadistic streak that like to pull all sort of nasty stuff with the PCs because he gets his kicks that way. Ok, granted 3e probably won't change the killer DMs, they'll just whine about how much 3e sucks and how much it strips DMs of their authority, and then go back to 1e or something and throw 1st level characters through the Tomb of Horrors or some such nonsense.

Nothing in 3.X actually prevents the DM from doing the same kind of sadistic crap that some DMs did in 1st Edition. It is easy to set up circumstances against the PCs, even while following the CR system to the letter. Very, very easy. If that's what you're into.

As a DM, I like to have consistant rules, because if I make up a rule one time, forget it, and then make up something totally different the next time a similar situation comes up, likely at least one player will remember the earlier ruling and start complaining.

You really could not remember that, in your campaign world, spellcasters can cast spells while riding horses? My experience of 1st Ed was very different.

(That said, I do think that 3.X offers a better rule system. It just needs to be tweaked a little toward 1st Ed power levels, rarity of magic, etc.... )


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

One thing I do that feel sacriligious is not use d20s when better dice are available - eg I use BECMID&D's morale (2d6) and mass combat (d100%) rules, both of which IMO work much better than if they were using d20. Or add the full stat to a roll rather than just the bonus (IMO STR + d6 to open door is a lot better than STR mod +d20 in terms of plausibility). My players are generally fairly accepting of my eccentricity but I do worry about it much more than I would in 1e.

IMC, I use 1d10 for initiative, have characters roll each round, and allow for simultaneous initiatives. It has made combat faster, and more involving.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Heh, I statted him out for fun this weekend as a level 6 CN sorcerer with mounted combat, mounted casting, weapon focus (ray), point blank shot and every ray spell from 0-3. I'm thinking he'd actually be a fun NPC for my next campaign, as a sort of anarchist in a world without modern political systems. (I mean, why call someone "the Chaotic" unless that's a defining characteristic?)

I believe Emerikol became "the Chaotic" because he was the first character to multi-class under the old, old, old D&D rules. (Gygax wrote about it in a fairly recent Dragon magazine, someone here probably knows the issue.)


RC

 

[DragonLancer]

The smell of the print.

Theres nothing more 1st ed the original AD&D books than the smell.

 

[Felon]

Way too much focus on the prose the 1e DMG's biggest asset.

A lot of the charm IMO had to do with the sensation that I was actually going to discover some hidden secret every time I opened the book. I could flip through it a few pages at a time and find a bit of lore tucked away in some overlooked paragraph that would make the game that much more awe-inspiring for my little gang fellow sixth-grade buddies...before I slaughtered them with it. Most 1e games I played had much more to do with foiling your fellow players than it did with working together to accomplish common goals.

And I think the folks who brought up Emrikol the chaotic are selling their position short. The artwork also played a big part. The rough, eclectic line art made the book feel like it belongd to a lost age. The thing about line art is that the eye can slide right off of major details, so I could look at an illo twenty times until I finaly spotted something completely new that entirely changed the effect it had on me.