"First Edition Feel"

[BiggusGeekus]

By my count from memory, not including the optional bard class, not including anything outside the core books (UA, OA, DLA, etc.), not including any human dual class options, and not including the optional psionic rules, I count 56 different race/class combinations allowed by the 1e rules.

That's always been enough for me to find something I wanted to play.

Sure, but you have to make all your decisions about your character at 1st level. 1st edition, with all the supplements, gives you amazing flexibility at 1st level. How about 2nd level? There we drop off and we're stuck with skills and weapon proficiencies.

 

[Quasqueton]

Oh, come now. It's been at least two weeks and I don't think we're going to hit our 2005 quota for that topic at the rate we've been going.

Ok, then:

<sigh>

Quasqueton

 

[Gentlegamer]

<sigh>

Quasqueton

*sigh* indeed.

Let it be known, Biggus and I have taken care of the "Edition War" aspect, so one else needs to respond in that fashion.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Sure, but you have to make all your decisions about your character at 1st level. 1st edition, with all the supplements, gives you amazing flexibility at 1st level. How about 2nd level? There we drop off and we're stuck with skills and weapon proficiencies.

You have to do the same with 3e.

Let's see, I need 8 ranks of knowledge:basketweaving, and 12 ranks of Knowledge: munchkin, and skill focus: mathematics to be a ninja of the mooning crescent, so I have to take these skills now and this feat by 3rd level......

I'd play 1e TODAY if I could find any players.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

*sigh* indeed.

Let it be known, Biggus and I have taken care of the "Edition War" aspect, so one else needs to respond in that fashion.

Fair enough!

 

[Henry]

I'll spare everyone the cliched jokes about half-whatever paladin/assassins.

"half-templated demon/drow/ninja/paladin/etc" character "concepts," and so on

Oh, gents, come now, we can do better than that! (The Paladin and Assassin thing won't stack, anyway.) My favorite one person came up with is "Titanic Celestial Myconid Ninja of Legend." As one poster put it, this is "A Godzilla-sized Ninja Mushroom Man, rampaging through Greyhawk, glowing and destroying all in his path with ninja stars the size of houses."

It boils down to, "some do; some don't." SOme do play 1E still; some don't. Some play wild combo characters, some don't. Some still run games with Men, Magic and Monsters *looks at Diaglo*, some don't.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Another way to think of it is to treat the AD&D universe as a setting, and apply stylistic and rules tweaks to d20 to simulate the reality of that universe (no dwarf wizards, elf paladins, etc.) The players like the general structure of the d20 rules, but want the flavor of AD&D.

 

[WizarDru]

In the Dungeon Crawl Classics line, Joeseph Goodman sums up what 'first edition feel' is, to me: "Remember the good old days, when adventures were underground, NPCs were there to be killed, and the finale of every dungeon was the dragon on the 20th level? Those days are back. Dungeon Crawl Classics don’t waste your time with long-winded speeches, weird campaign settings, or NPCs who aren’t meant to be killed. Each adventure is 100% good, solid dungeon crawl, with the monsters you know, the traps you fear, and the secret doors you know are there somewhere."

"First Edition Feel" has nothing to do with specific rule-sets, IMHO, and everything to do with evoking a more primal, more immediate D&D. It's D&D before we had to 'spice it up' and it's what WotC was alluding to with the 'back to the dungeon' concept. It's why we have conversions of classic modules...because it's a style that some people enjoyed.

Some days, you just wanna kill some orcs, and not worry about the socio-political structure of the anarcho-syndicate complex.

 

[atom crash]

I'd play 1e TODAY if I could find any players.

Decatur isn't all that far from Birmingham, my friend.

 

[Henry]

I think Dru has some important points. Until I had played C&C in a few one-shots recently, I had forgotten that could be fun to start the game and ACTUALLY GO GAME instead of coming up with a hugely developed series of NPCs and plot points. We made PCs, took their rudimentary skill sets and dove in. It was kind of like people making 3E PCs with a default bonus on all skills, and a set number of abilities, and CHARGING on in to the fun. This kind of approach, as well as a more stylistic AD&D approach, can be done in 3E with house rules, strictures on class/race combos, and so forth, too, or it can be done with original AD&D and a bit of DM/player adjudication.