First Edition feel with 4E rules

[NewJeffCT]

To use 4E rules, but give it a 1E feel. My stab at it – I am qualifying this by saying I have played a lot more 1E D&D than 4E (or 3.5E or 3E or 2E for that matter)

1) Roll hit points at first level for everybody using the old school rules (d4 for wizards, d6 for thieves, etc) and for each level after that until level 8/9/10.
2) Do the same for monsters, and make sure to give them far fewer hit points and far less diversity – almost every orc is the same orc with d8 hit points (except for the tribal leaders), almost every goblin has d8-1 hit points (meaning, most low level monsters have a good chance of dying from a single hit, just like a minion…)
3) Monster XP is divided by 5, but you also award XP for treasure. XP grows exponentially instead of incrementally (meaning, a midway through level 7 fighter has about the same XP as two level 6 fighters midway through level 6. I don’t have my 1E books with me, so I can’t confirm if that is exactly true for 1E)
4) Bring back alignments as they were.
5) Eliminate healing surges, feats and skills for every class, except the rogue having Thievery to encompass any thief-y action.
6) Condense races & classes down to the originals from 1E
7) Wizards have a single daily power at first level and then must use their dagger, quarterstaff or darts after that daily is used.
8) Clerics and Druids are the only ones that can heal, and they’re limited to Cure Light Wounds in the beginning. And, the clerics must use blunt weapons.
9) Make the base save DC to be around 16 instead of 10.
10) Disallow humans to multiclass, but allow non-humans to start off at level 1 in two or three classes. However, give non-humans level limits that most people will ignore.
11) Make up an extensive table for weapons vs AC that will be ignored by most people as well.
12) Re-do the "to hit" system so a low AC is better.

 

[Aurumvorax]

I'm growing tired of this back and forth circle pattern. My argument derives entirely from my belief that an RPG's style is influenced by its rules (or lack thereof). You don't need rules to role play but if this were an adequate argument the role playing business would've died before it started. Rules aren't tantamount to the game but to me, they're paramount. They keep the game on track, they ensure players or referee don't take advantage of each other, and they ensure everything works consistently within itself.

Everyone can have fun roleplaying whatever they want but you picked up D&D because you want to explore dungeons and kill dragons. When the roleplaying ends and it's time to do the latter, the rules determine how that's accomplished and how efficiently. The style is more than just role playing assumptions like whether your hero is actually a half-demon minotaur; the style is also partially influenced by the gameplay like whether your minotaur's eyes are seared out the sockets by a priest or his eyes are burned, suffer 2d6+6 damage and you're blinded (save ends).

Since the topic's "1st edition feel" differs for everyone, this is my personal list that I expect from an AD&D game and return to play whenever I can.

1- This picture. Just... just that picture.

2- Races are limited by classes and level. The reason being is that humans dominate the world, the races get good abilities anyways and it keeps players from picking whatever race is most beneficial for the class they want. You should play a race because it would be fun to role play a creature alien in the world of humans, not because it gives you a +2 intelligence and magic resistance. The Players Option books made me hate D&D races because they all turned into humans in Halloween costumes and funny accents.

3- Encounters leave permanent scars. I should walk away from a vampire with a little bit less of my soul than I began with. Demanding answers from an extraplanar creature should leave me skirting closer to the edge of madness.

4- Magic should be weighed on a risk vs. reward measure. I summon a fire elemental because it gives me an edge in battle but I have to deal with the beast turning on me if my mind can't temper its rage. I could try to save time by teleporting to the Ancient Domain of Mystery but who knows where I could end up instead. Raising the dead should leave them feeling slightly incomplete.

The party wizard should be just as dangerous to the monsters as he is the party. He flirts with arcane forces perverted and unknown. The payoff is someone can kill an entire town with a poisoned cloud or can bind demons to his service. The ends justify the accidental lightning bolt that rebounded and struck the warrior in the face.

5- Magic should also be powerful. I earned 7th level, dammit, now let me turn my arch-nemesis into a kitten so I can keep him around the house!

6- Mundane equipment should be anyone's saving grace. The 10' pole should be a thief-less party's greatest ally, more so than the cleric. Flaming oil should be more powerful than any spell you get until the 5th level and even then it continues being useful as a last minute damage dealer. My grappling hook can help me climb and it creates a makeshift trip wire at the last minute. My clunky wooden shield can protect from attacks and be used as a flotation device.

7- No skills or very, very few ones. Adventurers are proficient in 2 things; killing and looting. If there is a skill system, by the time they reach level 20 they should be masters of maybe 4-5 or novices in 9-10. There's no time inbetween looking for the next thing to kill/loot to learn how to become a master blacksmith, diplomat, master debater, orator, boatswains mate, fletcher, wainwright, taste tester, park ranger, flutist, flautist, florist, and anthropologist. If you can't do something, find someone else to help you out. T

his could be an entire adventure in itself as you have to find your contact ("The old hedge wizard Azamramathastishire? Yeah, he lives at the top of Mt. Fire Giant McTrolltown"), you have to safely escort your client ("My morale is only 5 so I warn you not to stray too far for an ant could scare me!"), or you have to find your client whatever item he needs ("Bring me the tail feather of a female cockatrice in heat during the full moon of the seventh month at the ninth hour. Shoo, shoo!").

8- Continuing off from 7, even if you keep skills I don't want any mechanics that govern role play. If I bluff someone, it's because I did it in character. Cut out search completely. I find a trap because I say "My character carefully slides his hands down the wall" followed by the DM saying "There are several indentions small enough for a dart to fire from... unfortunately you're no thief and your clumsiness caused one to prick you." I find the false bottom of the chest because I say "I knock on the chest" followed by the DM saying "You hear a hollow sound. There's a false bottom filled with loot!"

9- Want to know what that magic item does? Either poison yourself with identify to find out, find a sage/bard, or point it at your friend and say "Simsalabim bamba saladu saladim!"

10- Give me back my entourage. I want my shoeshine boy, pooper scooper, banner holder, bugler, watch dogs, trained owlbear, hipogriff, and 10d6 level 0 footsoldiers who will soften up the hill giants while I sneak around back to snatch their loot!

Those 10 things are, to me, the "first edition feel." Without all 10 of them, I don't feel like I'm playing first edition. That's my opinion.

 

[Dausuul]

Some things I've been thinking about to bring back some of the hard-edged 1E feel in a 4E game:

#1: Extended rests require an expenditure of gold pieces on whatever your personal form of entertainment is, and several days in a safe haven such as a town. (In other words, the only extended rests you get "in the field" are if you come across a magic spring or some such.) This brings resource management to the fore and means the PCs really have to pick their battles; maybe you can win this fight, but can you afford what it'll cost you?

#2: Encounters with beefed-up minions. You can kill them pretty quickly, but they'll get in some nasty whacks before they go. This will help re-create the fast-paced "skirmish" feel of minor combats in old editions.

#3: Inherent bonuses system to remove the reliance on +X items from the math. Magic items will be uncommons and rares from the Essentials books; no commons, no magic item shops. Magic is rare and powerful.

#4: Monsters that inflict curses and other long-term effects, possibly using the disease tracking rules. Magic items that do likewise.

#5: Frequent situations where monsters are clearly way too powerful for a frontal assault to succeed; the PCs must come up with cunning strategies to cut some of the monsters out of the pack, use terrain against them, et cetera. (I will probably need to flesh out the alchemist's fire rules.)

#6: Players not required to use Essentials but strongly encouraged to do so.

#7: Humans only. No crazy weird races.

#8: Experience granted on a quest basis, not per kill. (I more or less take this one for granted... I quit giving XP for kills back in 2E.)

Little of this is 1E-style in a mechanical sense, but I think they will help to evoke the flavor of 1E: adventurers in a tough dangerous world, living by their wits as much as their swords.

 

[WizarDru]

[MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]
Your mileage varies, of course, but I'm trying to speak primarily in mechanics. AD&D's modular design gave you the freedom necessary to say "damn the rules, full speed ahead!" Your experience in 1e was a free reign narrative and I argue that this is only possible in a game that doesn't stress so many tactical options.

You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I don't share it. Every single game I've played since the original Red Box and AD&D has had elements of rules supplementing or removal. Is it harder to play some versions when removing some elements? Certainly. But I've played 4e (and 3e, GURPS, Traveller, T&T, V&V, Champions, M&M, Call of Cthulu and more) without miniatures. We've thrown out the XP system in 4e and replaced it with arbitrary DM leveling announcements. Over every game I've ever played, bad rules or cumbersome rules or stuff that got in the way of our fun was routinely dropped. I'm sure someone used the encumberance or grappling rules in AD&D, for example, but I never met them. This has little to do with any edition. For me, '1E feel' (itself a term I have trouble with, since I don't consider it 1E, I consider it AD&D) is as much about nostalgia and youthful enthusiasm as it is about actual mechanics.

For example, what would happen if the same character became a half-demon in 4e? Would you change his race into a tiefling? Would you write up a couple of encounter powers and change ability scores around? Or would it simply be hand waved as a cosmetic change? In all cases but the latter, it's a major change to the way the character is run and the assumed "balance" of the game. The DM would have more work on his hands as he ad-hocs new situations based on something that goes against what 4e assumes.

Presumably the same thing that would have happened in AD&D, actually. In that case, I had NO IDEA what had happened to my character and wasn't given information by my DM as to what my powers were or what happened when I transformed. I had to figure it out, though I was given clues, sometimes by horrible accidents I might trigger. I was balanced by the DM. If the campaign was in 4e, I would STILL be balanced by the DM. The amount of work would be exactly the same....or rather would be less, since now the DM would have page 42 to help him. Not that I'm sure what any of that has to do with 'first edition feel', exactly.

There are plenty of mechanical differences between editions...but 3e started, 3.5 continued and 4e encased in bronze many of the core assumptions of D&D in writing. 4E's biggest change is that it presents those assumptions in print instead of implying them, often taking what the designers felt were things DMs and players worked around and building the system to accommodate them. Certainly that means the system isn't to everyone's tastes and that's fine (for me, at least).

Personally, there are many things about 1e feel I really don't want back. 1 HP wizards? No, thanks. Several week healing time? Not so much. Defeating higher-level NPCs to be able to advance to the next level? Not for me. Class, level and race restrictions? Not my bag. And so on. Some would argue that's not 'first edition feel' to them...and that's probably true. Because IMHO, that 'feel' is very personal and fairly diverse.

 

[NewJeffCT]

For me, '1E feel' (itself a term I have trouble with, since I don't consider it 1E, I consider it AD&D) is as much about nostalgia and youthful enthusiasm as it is about actual mechanics.

Personally, there are many things about 1e feel I really don't want back. 1 HP wizards? No, thanks. Several week healing time? Not so much. Defeating higher-level NPCs to be able to advance to the next level? Not for me. Class, level and race restrictions? Not my bag. And so on. Some would argue that's not 'first edition feel' to them...and that's probably true. Because IMHO, that 'feel' is very personal and fairly diverse.

I agree with your sentiments - well said.

 

[Doug McCrae]

#7: Humans only. No crazy weird races.

Unless they're shorties. 1e is full of shortarses - halflings, gnomes, dworfs. Elves in 1e are 5' tall (or slighly over), half-elves 5'6". Even half-orcs are shorter than humans, going by the picture in the PHB.

4e made elves almost the same height as humans. Dragonborn are taller, tieflings the same size. The only titches left are halflings and dworfs.

That's a big change, literally.

 

[JeffB]

It seems to me that what you expect out of the game really determines whether 4E (or 3.x, or even 2E) delivers on the "old school" feel. I've always played the game casually- in that I just don't care about all the minute details about RPGs that many hardcore gamers argue about (at least on the internet)

The key thing for me has always been the adventure- the types of scenarios, the locations (whether adventuring sites, towns, or the greater world), the interactions (combat or otherwise) with people/creatures, the traps and puzzles to figure out, and the exploration element of the game. Not the fiddly rules (or lack of) behind all of it.

However, if someone defines old/new school feel by exactly how the rules systems work, and how they interact with the world system, there will definitely be a disconnect.

IOW- If we've got 4 or 5 adventurers on a lonely road marching to the haunted keep to rescue some kidnapped locals. Or they are are laying out their plan to sneak into the Steading to deal the giants a blow they will not forget. OR they are lost in the desert and stumble upon the idols of the Lost city peaking through the sand. Or the halfling opening the door is telling his companions about how Roghan and Zelligar went off on some crusade and never returned to Quasqueton :Ultimately I'm not really concerned if they are doing it utilizing heavy resource management, skill checks, skill challenges, kits, save or die, 3d6 in order, daily powers, a one spell charlatan, a disease track, a cleric with a sword, a cleric whose religion forbids the drawing of blood, a ritual, treasure type L, treasure parcels, or any other exclusive rules bit to a particular edition- AS LONG AS- the rules don't get in the way.

Certain things may not appeal to me because they mess with my "old school world vision". Dragonborn for instance. Or Repeating crossbows. Or Magic Item shops on every corner. But those are all easily Nixed. or Noxed

 

[Zelligars Apprentice]

Very interesting responses, all! Thank you for your enthusiasm, and for keeping it civil (or at least, not invoking "Moderator Red Typeface of Doom!").

One clarification: I was assuming that a "reasonable" amount of house-ruling would be required to achieve the goal. I just wanted to see if it could be done without completely rewriting the game from the ground up.

Two points to follow up on: First, does Essentials make it easier to tweak the feel of the game towards "old-school"?
Second: It has been said that AD&D 1e produced very different experiences for different players. Is that true of 4e? That is, are different groups playing 4e having such different experiences with the game?
Actually, that last question is best as its own thread, I think. Excuse me while I go do that now...
EDIT: Done. Here's the link.

 

[Obryn]

Personally? When I want a 1e feel, I play 1e. That's what I've done in the past few years.

When I want a 4e feel, I play 4e.

When I want to play gritty grimdark fantasy, I play WFRP2.

When cosmic horror is appealing, I play Call of Cthulhu.

When I want a game full of backstabbing and satire, Paranoia comes down off my shelf.

IMO, different games are good at different things, and there's nothing wrong with that. This isn't to say that you can't take one game and make it feel like another game, but I'd much rather take a game that's already well-suited for the purpose.

Play games to their strengths and against their weaknesses.

-O

 

[Aurumvorax]

Unless they're shorties. 1e is full of shortarses - halflings, gnomes, dworfs. Elves in 1e are 5' tall (or slighly over), half-elves 5'6". Even half-orcs are shorter than humans, going by the picture in the PHB.

4e made elves almost the same height as humans. Dragonborn are taller, tieflings the same size. The only titches left are halflings and dworfs.

That's a big change, literally.

Dwarves were bumped up about 5 inches and halflings now match the original dwarf size.

No midgets in my fantasy world, please.