First Edition Feel: Why Is This a Good Thing?

[gamerprinter]

I think "First Edition Feel" differs from merely "First Edition" specifically in that it avoids a lot of your complaints. That is to say that if someone is playing a game that "feels" like first edition, they are de facto also specifically not playing first edition. Presumably because they like certain esoteric qualities of first edition play but do not like the mechanics.

Maybe... really, what feels like D&D to me, exists in every edition, at least up to 3x, and then to PF (I haven't looked at any WotC products since 3x). For a distinctly 1e feel, the mechanics or lack there of, is the primary cause of that specific "feel". From my perspective, if the mechanics doesn't match 1e, it cannot possibly have the 1e feel, rather the D&D feel, and as stated, that general feel isn't much different in any other edition of D&D. When I first started playing Pathfinder, it distinctly felt no different than any other D&D game, I've ever played. So I disagree its even possible to emulate 1e feel with a different rules set.

 

[Mark CMG]

[snip]

*sniffle*

You had me at "a lot of paranoid PCs" . . .

 

[goatunit]

So I disagree its even possible to emulate 1e feel with a different rules set.

I'll agree that I don't think it's been achieved. I was speaking only of the motivation in attempting it. I like AD&D, so I play AD&D. I'm not particularly interested in emulating it.

I have the impression, though, that 1st edition also had the assumption that the players would attend every session.

Early editions of D&D suggest a player/dm ratio of up to 50:1. I believe the pioneers intended that a campaign contain multiple gaming groups, often with only the DM and the world in common. It's also implied that players may want to sit out or roll up 1st level characters during times when their characters are involved in training, spell or magical item creation, research, etc. This is why Gygax harped on about campaign timekeeping so strongly.

 

[scourger]

For me, "first edition feel" hearkens back to a more free-wheeling game where anything was possible...To a degree, I thought it was nostalgia when I look back to those days. But my group rediscovered that wonder with Savage Worlds. Same feeling with a more coherent framework...

Right on. Savage Worlds definitely makes gaming feel more free but still exciting - for me. As a player, I can take risks and do cool things. As a GM, I can easily prepare & run the game so I can focus more on the story. That's a "First Edition Feel" in a good way.

Ironically, the last time I played First Edition was enough for me. It felt too familiar in all the bad, wrong ways. I left that game pretty quickly once I identified the old, familiar pattern. I was & am glad that I did so. It could have been a function of the group dynamics. It probably was to some extent. But I just couldn't slog through yet another game with the same old actions & results. I wish it had been different.

One of the best First Edition Feels for me is the old Necromancer character sheets for 3.0 done in the style of a 1e document. They even had a version where the stats are re-ordered to the original Str Int Wis Dex Con Cha, although now I prefer the SDCIWC order. If I ever get another 3.0 game going, I want to go back to the old DCC character sheet that looks like a Basic one. Hopefully, I can get the game back to its dungeon-crawling heart.

 

[Umbran]

Why is this a good thing?

Because diversity breeds creativity. Because if everyone liked the same thing, the world would be *BORING*, and there'd be a worldwide shortage of haggis*.



*Either everyone likes haggis, so that there's a shortage because we can't make it fast enough, or nobody likes haggis, so nobody makes it, and it can't be found when some cooking competition show needs an extra "screw you" ingredient.

 

[GMMichael]

Here's another possibility, someone might have mentioned it:

"First edition feel," relating back to amateur art, deadly dungeons, and lots of subsystems, means thoroughly unplaytested.

Which points at the comments that OD&D offered lots of possibilities and oftentimes resulted in highly unbalanced situations.

I can see that as a selling point as long as the game/product is still fun.

 

[Celebrim]

First edition feel,"... means thoroughly unplaytested.

The opposite is in fact true. AD&D was thoroughly playtested. What is true is that 1e was thoroughly untheorycrafted.

 

[Neonchameleon]

To me "First edition feel" means one of two things.
1: Taken on its own merits and without outside sources 1e is a disorganised obscurantist mess, conveying erroneous and philosophunculist historical information and its hippopotomonstrososesquipedailian vocabulary eschews clarity and simplicity in favour of self-aggrandizement.
2: AD&D itself was a scam to swindle Arneson out of royalties that could be bolted on to the excellent, simple, and challenging oD&D or Red Box and that mostly provided a handful or two of useful tables

And for the record, oD&D was the best playtested game in the history of RPGs, and probably the best balanced. The cleaned up version in the red box and that lead to B/X, BECMI and the Rules Cyclopaedia have almost all the good features indicated by Mishari Lord. Most successful AD&D groups were, I believe, using AD&D as optional add-ons to either word of mouth teaching or the red box rather than AD&D.

I just wish more games would go back to actual basics (red, brown, or white box) rather than the immensely bloated game that gave us psionic rules, helmet rules, classes that didn't actually work (Monk, I'm looking at you - and your surprise rules), and that Gygax claimed you had to play by the rules as written or you weren't actually playing. Looking at 1E AD&D for what made the feel of the game is like looking at The Matrix: Reloaded for what made the franchise work.

 

[goatunit]

The cleaned up version in the red box and that lead to B/X, BECMI and the Rules Cyclopaedia have almost all the good features indicated by Mishari Lord. Most successful AD&D groups were, I believe, using AD&D as optional add-ons to either word of mouth teaching or the red box rather than AD&D.

I just wish more games would go back to actual basics (red, brown, or white box) rather than the immensely bloated game that gave us psionic rules, helmet rules, classes that didn't actually work (Monk, I'm looking at you - and your surprise rules), and that Gygax claimed you had to play by the rules as written or you weren't actually playing. Looking at 1E AD&D for what made the feel of the game is like looking at The Matrix: Reloaded for what made the franchise work.

It's true. I think, though, that we've reached a point in gaming culture where "1st Edition" is a catch all term for all D&D before 2nd Edition AD&D. I don't think most people know the difference between the various early versions.

 

[Erechel]

As a long time player, I feel that 5ed has a lot more in common with AD&D than any other edition that I've seen, but cleaning some of the messes and obscurantism. I still think that the whole Builds concept is a munckinade with no taste at all, and no narrative or verosimilitude sense. When I see people optimizing stuff, I look at them with some discontent, <i>specially</i> when they are multiclassing not because a narrative logic or character development, but by powergaming sake giving birth to monsters like "1 level cleric/2 levels rogue/5 wizard/10 fighter". How possibly sustain logically something like this? That was the main reason why I dislike 3.5 so much, because optimization suddenly was BEFORE creatively thinking and performing a character. 4th edition was one step forward in that way, limiting the multiclassed aberrations, but two steps back because optimization was even more important, AND an unified system that overall makes every class feel the same. In AD&D optimization clearly was an option, but far less strong than in ulterior games. 5 edition give balance a chance, optimization is possible, but not that important (inspiration, backgounds, etc are far more oriented to the roleplaying side), but the time will reveal if they ultimately achieve this.