History: OD&D to AD&D 1st edition

[MerricB]

Just a note for those interested in doing some research on what happened during those days: there's a bunch of interviews with TSR staff (and Gary) in The Dragon issue #28. If you have a copy of the Dungeon Magazine Archive, or the actual issue in question, you may wish to look it up.

An excerpt:

Lawrence Schick
The Dungeon Masters Guide contains an enormous amount of information, more than in Players Handbook and Monster Manual put together... Here are the sections of the DMG that I consider of prime importance to the conduct and balance of the game:
* Acquisition and recovey of spells
* Combat and melee, including spell casting during melee
* Awarding of experience points and levels
* Rules and limitations on magical research, including fabrication of magic items
* Creating and controlling non-player characters
* Placement of treasure
* Alignment

Excessive tampering with any of these sections by DMs (except possibly alignment) or abuse by players could very easily cause serious imbalances in the game. Large alterations almost inevitably result in campaigns so weird as to be unrecognizable as AD&D. As it stands, all the core sections of AD&D hang together, one on the other, in a series of checks and balances. Innovations are best made slowly and carefully to determine their far-reaching effects on the whole of the game. The above sections are among the most essential.

It is also worth noting that Gary Gygax remarks that deities are essential to AD&D, and the revision of Gods, Demigods and Heroes will be necessary to the game. I'd have to say that Deities & Demigods (later Legends & Lore) never really entered any game I played in or saw as an essential part of the game...

Cheers!

 

[SuStel]

It is also worth noting that Gary Gygax remarks that deities are essential to AD&D, and the revision of Gods, Demigods and Heroes will be necessary to the game. I'd have to say that Deities & Demigods (later Legends & Lore) never really entered any game I played in or saw as an essential part of the game...

Gary repeats this in the Foreward to Deities & Demigods: "DEITIES & DEMIGODS is an indispensible part of the whole of AD&D. Do not fall into the error of regarding it as a supplement. It is integral to Dungeon Mastering a true AD&D campaign."

Just as the Monster Manual answered the question, "What can this monster do?", so does D&D answer "What can this god do?" It gives parameters to the gods, so the Dungeon Master has a framework to work with. This framework does several things:

• It determines the upper limit of character strength. "Furthermore, characters who become a match for [the gods] are obviously to be ranked amongst their number, no longer suitable for daily campaign interaction, but to be removed to another place and plane and treated accordingly." (p. 2)
• It gives the limits of godly ability. "All of the leaders of the pantheons were given 400 hit points and the rest were scaled down from there." (p. 4) The maximum score for any ability score is set at 25.
• It gives the baseline abilities of all gods, whether they are listed in the book or not.
• It assigns alignments and planes to the gods.
• It gives characters specific deities to worship.
• It gives the Dungeon Master statistics to use should the player characters encounter the gods.

These rules are as important to the game as defining the racial limits of characters or defining when characters stop receiving hit dice. You don't have to use the rules, but they're what defines AD&D.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

We used the gods in Deities and Demigods, but paid no attention to the crunch. Not only did we never get any higher than the low teens, and rarely that high, but we couldn't agree on the alignments and/or spheres of influence of several of them. (The experts in our group pointed out that Loki, in particular, got a raw deal as his BBEG image comes from one Saga. One which was heavily edited and rewritten by an early Norse/Icelandic christian cleric.)

 

[thedungeondelver]

These rules are as important to the game as defining the racial limits of characters or defining when characters stop receiving hit dice. You don't have to use the rules, but they're what defines AD&D.

QFT

 

[CryHavoc]

It seems a touch elitest the Gary crew, go figure, he's always seemed to be a 'Bat and Ball' kinda guy.

 

[Maggan]

An excerpt:

Lawrence Schick
The Dungeon Masters Guide contains an enormous amount of information, more than in Players Handbook and Monster Manual put together... Here are the sections of the DMG that I consider of prime importance to the conduct and balance of the game:

I find it interesting that the emphasis is on balance. 3e gets a lot of bad rap for aiming for a balanced set of rules, and I've even read comments that allude to the fact that balance as a goal is a new concept for 3e which was not present in AD&D.

I'll have to reread the earlier Dragons I've got. Should be interesting.

/M

 

[Ron]

In great part, I believe they are trying to enforce the rules as they were present to keep things unified in events such as tournaments. In the other hand, there is a lot of arrogance in saying that you cannot change a rule without screwing the game, especially when I never found anyone that played AD&D without some adaptations, including Gygax himself, as he admits never using many of the rules available there. Nevertheless, they were young and trying very hard to convince their customers to buy the new more expensive books instead of the old cheaper ones that forced them to pay ugly royalties to that other inconvenient guy.

 

[tx7321]

I find it interesting that the emphasis is on balance. 3e gets a lot of bad rap for aiming for a balanced set of rules, and I've even read comments that allude to the fact that balance as a goal is a new concept for 3e which was not present in AD&D.

I'll have to reread the earlier Dragons I've got. Should be interesting.

/M

Hey Maggan, I'm not certain what your referring to. There is a comparison floating around between character balance: In 1E characters were considered balanced because each PC type (Cleric, fighter, MU, thief) was equally important to reaching a goal as a team of "specialists". So a thief might never go head to head in fighting (perhaps tossing a few daggers from the back now and then), but shines when its time to get past a locked stone door or deadly trap. In 3E character balance often refers to relative strength of each class in general.

 

[BryonD]

Gary repeats this in the Foreward to Deities & Demigods: "DEITIES & DEMIGODS is an indispensible part of the whole of AD&D. Do not fall into the error of regarding it as a supplement. It is integral to Dungeon Mastering a true AD&D campaign."

Its funny. I always read these type comments as nothing more than marketing.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Its funny. I always read these type comments as nothing more than marketing.

Me too.

The most interesting part of Deities & Demigods, IMO, is where it describes the disctinctions how certain levels of cleric spells are granted. I don't have my book handy, but it seems like 1st and 2nd level weren't directly granted, but came from personal faith and meditation, higher level were granted by agents of the deity (e.g. solars), and the highest levels were granted by the deity, personally. Also, I seem to remember it drawing a distinction between the different "levels" of deity: demigods being unable to grant certain spells, lesser gods a few more, etc. Anyone have their book handy?