How did D&D survive its early years?

[Sir Whiskers]

How did characters survive? Most didn't. My first character, a magic user, died when he fell in a pit while running from a ghoul. The law of averages did help at times: I still remember two fighter characters I had who were the only survivors of a large party that faced a sea hag - they gained enough xp's to reach fourth level from that one fight (they added the rule about only one level gain at a time later). Those two characters survived until they were retired, so getting lucky early helped. In another fight, some giant frogs killed 19 of 20 mercenaries we brought along - tons of xp from those frogs for the surviving party members (and who ever cared what happened to hirelings?)

Also, I can't speak for anyone else, but when I started (1976), DnD was more strategy and less roleplaying. We always had six party members, so oftentimes a player ran more than one character. Sure we hated losing characters, but really, most of the time (especially if I'd just rolled him up) losing a character was like losing a unit in a wargame - just plug in another one. I only became upset if I disagreed with WHY he died, which happened all too frequently, given the poorly written rules. Deaths were just expected. Somewhere along the way, that changed, but I don't think it did so until after ADnD came out.

Why keep playing? It was fun!!! Think of it as pen-and-paper Diablo. How many times did you reload a save game when you started playing Diablo and got yourself into trouble. Same thing with DnD, except we had no save games - dead was usually dead. But we did learn (flaming oil was a great weapon at low levels). There was always something new to fight, new treasure to gain, new dungeons to pillage. I can't stress enough how similar the early DnD experience was to Diablo (or Civilization-type games), where you keep saying "just one more room..."

Sometimes I really miss the (seeming) simplicity of the original game...[puts on rose-colored glasses].

 

[Zappo]

However, I do want to point out a phenomenon; "Iron Man" play is returning as a popular form of play, in card games, in RPG's, and in computer games. "Iron Man" games are those with no mulligans or protective nets. I've heard over the past few years of "Iron Man Magic" the card game; If a card is killed or destroyed, it is REALLY destroyed.

Anyone remember the computer game Wasteland? HUGE game, very popular. You could SAVE, but you couldn't RESTORE once you left and area. Once you left an area, all the changes to it were saved to disk, so if you killed a merchant or important NPC, they STAYED DEAD.

I'm an Angband player and I tell ya that beating Morgoth, Lord of Darkness, with a character that plays by the rules (ie, one save, no restoring, and if you die that save is immediately erased) gives a feeling of immense pride and satisfaction. Beat Baldur's Gate, you've proved that you've got time on your hands. Beat ZAngband, you've proved that you're good at it (and, of course, that you've got time on your hands ). I wish more commercial games had iron man mode. Yeah, you could just play and vow never to reload, but that's tough and the games aren't really balanced to do that.

 

[kenjib]

Or used multiple discs.....

Congratulations. You are l337 h4xx0r5!!!!

 

[Plane Sailing]

It survived because it was fun and it was the only game on the block!

My first ever character was a theif who rolled 1hp. Nonetheless, he used his sling ineffectually against what turned out to be an iron golem, participated in a fight against a 4th Fighter with a dancing sword, and ended up as one of the sole survivors from a party of about 14. I retired the character when he eventually reached 3rd level.

I don't know what was happening in the rest of the world, but back in those early days we didn't tend to have long running campaigns - instead we would all have a dozen or so characters and they would meet up for that weeks dungeon/adventure/whatever... it might seem strange now, but it made sense to us then and was lots of fun.

The first level MU in those days never took magic missile (it was useless). They either took sleep (and they used to dominate all party decisions until they had used up their spell... no save, took out 4-16 1HD creatures); after they had used their spell they became dogsbodies. Many wizards took to using their sleep spell to traitorously sleep the party at the end of the adventure and steal all their goods. Charm Person was the other really good one, since it tended to give lots more control over the person back in those days (I'm talking white books + Greyhawk here!)

I also think that being more rules-light was good for the game in many respects. As someone else has already said - the parties purchased and used iron spikes, 10ft poles, ropes, grapples. It was more a case of PC's saying they will hammer in spikes and let the rope down, then slide down it (rather than relying on rope use skill, this skill, that skill...). The free form nature meant that you didn't worry so much about your level, because it wasn't a limiter to you in non-game situations.

I can still remember the excitement when the first one of our characters made it up to 3rd level. Eventually a lot of them made it up to 5th-8th level. My highest level characters were a 20th level wizard, a 16th ranger and a dual-classed monk 7/evil cleric11... but at the exp advancement rates this took some 14 years worth of playing!


Cheers

 

[Geoffrey]

I have to admit to quite a bit of DM fudging in our games when the characters were 1st or 2nd level.

 

[Kilmore]

We were all suckers looking for something dorky in a cool way.

 

[Dungannon]

Not to get too off-topic, but I've noticed quite a few replies here mention house-ruling the -10 hp survival rule in early editions of the game. We used a slightly different house rule, you went unconcious at 0 and continued to lose 1 hp/rd, but didn't die til you hit -your Con score. Did anyone else base negative hp on Con or any other skill instead of arbitrarily using 10?

 

[Storminator]

We played with the magic item XP wasn't shared, it went to the guy with the item (lets one guy level quick, so he can take point), XP for gold (and we were greedy bastards), and you split XP among the survivors only (one guy left standing? probably levels).

We also used a pyramid scheme. 12 guys go into module 1, two guys survive. Put them on the back burner, roll up 12 more PCs, run them thru another module (or a different cave if using Keep on the Borderlands), two more survive. Repeat until you have 12 survivors. Band them together and run thru a 2nd level module.

By the time you get 6th level PCs you've run thru a couple hundred dead, and the survivors are pretty good.

One of our trips thru this method resulted in a 4th level party with no thief. Every thief died. So, true to form, we created a party full of thieves, and unleashed them on a town. Darwinian crime spree! Every thief must keep stealing (and robbing, and backstabbing...) until only one survives. He joins the party. And what brilliant names did we give these thieves? A-1, B-52, C02, D-Day...

And the mighty H2O lived to be one bad ass halfling thief!

I still have his sheet.

PS

 

[Mistwell]

We cheated.

 

[hellbender]

I will chime in with what a few of the old grognards have said (I am one too, having started playing at 13 back in '82) about 1E's PCs needing to work together more in order to survive. Sure, I will admit, we weren't that sophisticated back then, and followed the rules pretty closely (although we did have the maximum hit points at start rule, and dead was -5 back then). PCs had to be survivalists and magic-users had to struggle to get those spells. Nowadays, a break from 3e or d20 to the Old Ways is refreshing, and more house rules and more sanity are utilized (for example, monster ecologies make a lot more sense, magic users get 3x the spells from the start).

I also agree with the lower levels being more fun to play. In higher levels, with current 3e and various d20 products, nowadays, there are many more interesting scenarios and challenges to throw at PC.

hellbender