Going Retro

[Glade Riven]

I've got to ask.

You started with 3e which implies you understood AOOs. But you didn't get THAC0? Really?

One, I suck at math - especially formulas until I know how they are applied. I need context, and the description in the version of 2e I read...was weird. Been a while since I attempted to read it, and I think I may have gotten lost around figuring out what the Thac0 was or something. I started with 3e, and backtracking into 2e with the context that I knew probably screwed me up.

Two, even though I suck at math, I have a tendency to think of equasions in algabraic form. Which is weird, but I have a better understanding of math if a. it is explained in algebraic terms and b. the context of usage. So 3.5 and 4e math I process very quickly, where 2e just seemed...weird. Contextually, 3e and 4e are very similar until you get to powers - and even then, Bo9S gave me a preview.

And OoP was mostly a matter of someone trying to walk past within arm's reach or trying to cast a spell at point blank. Never quite got 3e/3.5's turn undead though. The book doesn't explain it very well, and in hindsight seems kinda sorta but not Thac0.

 

[Stormonu]

Wow, this thread took a left turn.

My wife never quite got the hang of THAC0, as did another casual player in the group.

For me, "THAC0 - AC = roll this or higher on d20" was easy enough to do. Most of the character sheets we used had a line where you could write in what you needed so you didn't have to do the math. [What was harder to explain was how +1 Chain Mail improved your AC from 5 to 4].

What I have trouble remembering after 10-12 years is which way was better to roll for things (high for attacks and damage, low for ability checks and saves - as I recall).

Turning was a bugbear; 3E's version actually made it worse.

 

[Gentlegamer]

THAC0 - AC = roll needed to hit

Examples:

i. an attacker has a THAC0 of 15 and the target has an AC 3: 15 - 3 = 12. The attacker must roll a 12 or more to hit.

ii. an attacker has a THAC0 of 15 and the target has an AC -2: 15 - (-2) = 17. The attacker must roll a 17 or more to hit.

THAC0 also permits the "Defend Yourself" method of combat to be used: DM announces to the players an opponent is attacking, PCs roll d20 and add their AC and give the total; if total is equal or higher than opponent THAC0, PC is hit.

 

[Rogue Agent]

If Zak is being honest about the sales of Vornheim, and there's no reason to believe that he's not, the retro market is actually capable of turning out in pretty large numbers to buy the right products. And given that mainstream RPG sales have dwindled way, way down in recent years, the actual difference between the two markets may not be meaningfully far apart at all.

Has he recently released hard numbers? Based on figures posted here and there, I'd be shocked if they've sold 5000 copies. (And that's including the massively discounted $1.35 PDFs they were selling a couple weeks ago.) I'd probably have a stroke if they've sold more than 10,000.

For WotC and Hasbro, these numbers are, in fact, ridiculously minuscule. And at least an order of magnitude smaller than their existing sales.

The last I saw, Zak was saying that he'd made good money on Vornheim. Which is almost certainly true. But good money for Zak is not good money for WotC.

Oh, you can compare SALES but that's not the same as knowing how many people are actually playing what since older editions aren't going to show up in current sales figures

Odd thing that: People who don't buy stuff don't actually matter when you're considering the commercial viability of a product.

It's like you refuse to believe that people CAN change editions for some reason - but it happens a fair amount.

I'm not sure where you're getting that nonsense from. Certainly nothing I've posted here.

See, now this tells me only that YOU have a curiously narrow point of view. "Unplayable historical curiosity"?

It is literally unplayable without either (a) extensive house-ruling or (b) a completely different product (which you still have to kit-bash). It's great that, in 1974, the game captured the imagination and encouraged people to do that house-ruling and kitbashing, but in 2011 you don't have the kind of classy glory of Hasbro's retro releases: You just have a poorly organized, typo-ridden rulebook that can't actually be used to play a game without a lot of elbow grease.

I know Rule 0 fallacies are fun, but I stand by the factual accuracy of my statement.

Ya know, I never understood what was so difficult about understanding AoOs (maybe because those of us who followed Eric Noah's Third Edition News site hung on every scrap of news released back then--and he had spiffy examples of the rules as new bits were leaked). At any rate, I always found AoOs easy to figure out, as long as the DM used common sense to help remember what provoked.

Yeah. They're just not that tough:

(1) Can somebody hit you with a melee weapon?
(2) Are you doing something that provokes?
(3) Are you moving more than 5 feet?

These questions are not complicated, confusing, or difficult to answer.

 

[Ringlerun]

Something in these recent 5e threads got me a thinking...what if, WHAT if...WotC does something a bit more like their own retro clone.

D&D Anniversery Edition, which plays more like AD&D with a few modern concepts tossed in to make it easier for 4e gamers to pick up (and, y'know, clean up some issues; AC instead of THACO, etc). It may not even be a replacement for 4e, but rather a special release - a box set that goes old school, with no real planned suppliments.

I know, I know, now someone is gonna point out that we already have retro clones. But I'm not thinking a clone so much as a feel or style.

I wont get into the Thac0 debate as it has been done to death in other forums.

If WoTC was to reprint 1st edition Ad&d core books i would buy them. No need to create a retro clone when you have the original.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I've read somewhere that Armor Class was a mechanic ported to D&D from a naval combat game. I don't know if the scale 10 to -10 makes any sense in that context either. Back in the days we usually employed a thac0 table for each weapon carried as a crutch until we had it all internalized.

On topic: I'd love to see an official anniversary retro D&D in an all white aesthetic with a simple embossed logo.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Odd thing that: People who don't buy stuff don't actually matter when you're considering the commercial viability of a product.

If you build it, they will come. Just because somebody is playing 1E with the original books and therefore hasn't bought a single D&D product for the last decade doesn't mean that if you create a set of D&D rules that utilizes a more old school approach they won't buy that either.

I'm not sure where you're getting that nonsense from. Certainly nothing I've posted here.

I took it from your first post in the thread where you said that WotC producing a retroclone will never happen because:
1) the market is too small,
2) people playing 3E like 3E,
3) people playing 4E like 4E,
- and therefore nobody would ever buy it.

You were effectively saying that if somebody plays one particular edition right now they won't ever switch to ANYTHING new or different from that edition, that everyone is now set with the edition they want forever and no new edition will ever succeed again.

It is literally unplayable without either (a) extensive house-ruling or (b) a completely different product (which you still have to kit-bash).

Playability for an RPG does not require that every course of action be covered by rules. It can leave open swaths of activities for the DM to rule on by fiat, house-rule, borrow rules from other games. Just because it doesn't exert rules control over everything you can do as a player doesn't make it unplayable.

You just have a poorly organized, typo-ridden rulebook that can't actually be used to play a game without a lot of elbow grease.

It is, of course, just fine if YOU don't care to ever play such a game. Heck, I prefer a much more thorough set of rules than OD&D as well. But that doesn't make them unplayable. Just unplayable with the level of input that you yourself care to expend.


I'm not saying that you have to love every older edition of D&D. I'm saying you've missed the fact that they all have elements that people enjoy enough to choose them over other editions and that those elements CAN be replicated. If people are playing OD&D then it IS demonstrably playable. If you figure out what those elements are that draw people to mulitple older edition and and can produce a new set of rules that embraces them you CAN pull people away from older edtions and retroclones and get them to buy it. I'm not saying that would be easy either, just that it's within the realm of consideration whereas you are dismissing the idea out of hand. I'm saying it's always going to be worth consideration whereas you seem to be saying it's not ever going to be worth thinking about (which I would then classify as a bad business attitude).

 

[juboke]

I don't find THAC0 any less or more difficult, though I can see the preference for BAB and ascending AC. Some people become easily frustrated with subtraction and feel that it is much more difficult than addition.

When discussing THAC0, I think Frank Mentzer said it best when he said "It was logical and simple, but it IS a math function, and many folks have an aversion even to simple arithmetic."

 

[Mercutio01]

I don't find THAC0 any less or more difficult, though I can see the preference for BAB and ascending AC. Some people become easily frustrated with subtraction and feel that it is much more difficult than addition.

When discussing THAC0, I think Frank Mentzer said it best when he said "It was logical and simple, but it IS a math function, and many folks have an aversion even to simple arithmetic."

For me it was more about the fact that the math wasn't consistent for all the different things you did. You subtract with THAC0, add with damage, roll under d100 for thief skills, roll over d20 for saving throws, gain % bonuses to XP based on Prime Scores, and your AC goes down as it gets better. None of those is hard or individually problematic, but taken all together I think you can see where the system is inelegant and somewhat confusing.

 

[Imperialus]

THAC0 - AC = roll needed to hit

Examples:

i. an attacker has a THAC0 of 15 and the target has an AC 3: 15 - 3 = 12. The attacker must roll a 12 or more to hit.

ii. an attacker has a THAC0 of 15 and the target has an AC -2: 15 - (-2) = 17. The attacker must roll a 17 or more to hit.

The way I always did it was:

Roll your die. Add (or subtract modifiers). Subtract total from THAC0. That's the AC you hit.

For example. Attacker has a THAC0 of 15 and a +1 for Str and a +1 sword. Player rolls a 12. Adds 2 for a total of 14. 15-14=1. Attacker hits AC 1.