Has anyone went back to 1E AD&D from 3E?

[godfear]

Nah, I'll stick with 3E, now that it's here. Never really played 1st Edition, except that time I asked to play a 1E bard, starting off as a 1st level fighter. Other than that, we played 2nd Edition for quite awhile, but then we thought up a situation, which put the flaws of that system into perspective.

Take a 13th level fighter. He wants to learn to read/write. He goes dragon hunting, because he'll need to be 18th level before he has enough nwp slots to pull it off. *sighs* Gives a whole new meaning to Conan the Librarian...

 

[Zhure]

I play in two 1e games and one 2e game, as well as one 3e game. The 3e game is far more exciting as a player. More control of character creation, better rules, more "balanced" classes, so the fighter-types don't die out in usefulness about 10th level.

I also have run 3e and will continue to do so. I see absolutely no reason to backtrack to the previous systems. 3e has handled most of the problems I've seen in the earlier editions.

Greg

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Active Original AD&D Community

For thoise who are interested, there is a thriving online 1E AD&D community at:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[SableWyvern]

Please be gentle with me.

Ok, I've gotta ask.

Why does everyone hate 2e so much?

I definitely agree with most of you, that 3e outshines all others. I am still somewhat shocked when I stop to think about the fact that I own d&d. Over 15+ years, I've never bought a single d&d product until 3e came out and thoroughly impressed me.

I played a bit of Original back a long, long time ago, and a very small amount of 1e; but I knew both systems relatively well.

I ran a short 2e campaign a couple of years back, and although it felt (at first at least) as if it had lost a bit of the 1e feel, I thought the basic system changes like THAC0 changes served to streamline and simplify the game.

So, what's the huge problem with 2e? I recall it getting some bad publicity when it first came out, but thought it had ended up pretty well accepted.

 

[Aaron L]

Because the differences between 2E and 1E could have been adequately delineated in a 10 page pamphlet, and most of the changes implemented did not make the game any better.

 

[Henry]

It's not that most former 2E players HATE 2E - but rather that they find disdain in returning to it. When one finds something easier to run with more options, you hate to returning to that which has less options, and which is harder to run.

A lot of people disliked 2E in the first place because it had many stigmas attached - compared to other RPG's, it was limited in scope and had many quirky behaviors that were surpassed by other systems. Many players who started with other systems never even cared to go to 2E, because of this perception.

Even I dabbled with GURPS and Vampire and Shadowrun before our group returned to D&D back in 1998. It was D&D that sparked our imagination, and what many of us grew up playing.

About the only thing I WOULDN'T mind playing again just for old times' sake would be Original D&D. Sometimes having those 10 basic options or so was fun in a different, nostalgic way.

Before, I had to look at tables to determine saving throws, and turning attempts, and spell progressions. Now, I can create a 3rd edition D&D character almost from scratch without having to refer to a rule book - the progressions and options are all laid out for me in formulas, and It takes almost nothing to calculate something I don't recall - BAB's, Saves, Hit points, spell progressions, ability score bonuses - I could even tell you what the ability score bonus spells are for any intelligence score up to 30! (That's -,3,3,2,2,2,2,1,1,1 by the way - think of a block of four numbers cascading bigger and to the right.)

 

[Zappo]

Gary Gygax is a genius for what he has done, and he will always take the highest praise I could possibly conceive,

BUT

just as I wouldn't trade my TDI for one of the first cars invented, I am not going back to THAC0 and racial level limits. Evolution. What is not perfect can be improved, and even if old AD&D were perfect, it would still have to adapt to the new times.

 

[kenjib]

I love this sort of defense of 1e/2e.

"1e (or 2e) was great! If you just ignored weapon vs. armor type modifiers, weapon speed, demihuman level limits, added house rules allowing for a skill system and removing the restrictions on what races could be what classes, and monkeyed around with a couple dozen other things it was a great game!"

Apparently 1e/2e was a better game because, if you ignored half the rules and added a bunch of house rule patches, the game worked okay.

I don't think that this argument is invalid. Take combat, for example. If you got rid of weapon vs. armor, weapon speed, re-rolling initiative, and didn't use miniatures in 1e, combat just flies by. It's incredibly fast.

It is much more difficult to make changes to 3e combat because there are more rules built into the system that are based on the fundamental assumptions of the game mechanics. How can you streamline combat to get the speed of 1e? Get rid of miniatures? That makes tracking flanking and attacks of opportunity very difficult. Get rid of attacks of opportunity? You are destroying a great number of the feats in the game, crippling all melee oriented characters, and probably breaking other obscure rules that you won't even discover until you stumble upon them. There are also more rules to deal with, and if you choose to use supplements they are spread throughout a dozen different books. You can memorize them, sure, but there's more to memorize since there are now more combat options, feats, unique prestige class abilities, etc.

I know that others disagree but I still think that, in terms of speed of combat, it was much more easy to streamline 1e so that you could get through combat quickly and efficiently. 3e has too many interdependencies to muck with.

Personally, I still prefer 3e, but I do think that 3e both gained and lost some things by adding the extra layers of complexity that it did. 1e was more rules-light.

 

[Psion]

Well 1st or 3rd Edition at least their is a consensus that 2nd edition was the worse !

There most definitely is not!

2e was a step forward. Not enough of a step forward, but a step forward. Biggest, most important improvement: most of UA nixed, along with the bizarro bard and freebie psionics! Speed factor was baffling in 1e, and there were steps towards relaxing the stifling level limit rules (before finally booting them altogether in 3e). The proficiency system became standardized and gave you a little room to customize your character. Likewise with the theif skill system and cleric spheres. Finally, S&P were the first intimations towards true character flexibility.

 

[Ace]

Hell No Iwon't go!


The only concievable way i would play 1e is with those tiny tiny books they released a few years back.

You could put all of 1e books, a few note books, miniature dice, magnifing glass ,15mm( or 10mm) figures golf pencils and some small erasers into a a large butt pack. Too bad thewe weren't miniature modules.

A pick up game while camping <if you had the misfortune to camp with gamers > would be cool

Otherways. No Freakin way!