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How did pre-3E D&D "play"?
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<blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 4448361" data-attributes="member: 3649"><p><strong>Rolling 3d6 in order for each ability score. </strong></p><p>Never seen anyone do this, ever.</p><p></p><p><strong>Complicated and scattered charts and tables. </strong></p><p>It was a pain, but almost all games had tons of charts and tables early on until we started seeing skill-based games. It was just the way things were done. </p><p></p><p><strong>Races as classes. </strong></p><p>Only OD&D does this; it was something quickly dropped when 1E came out and never used again. </p><p></p><p><strong>Weak low-level mages and powerful high-levle mages.</strong> </p><p>It was frustrating.</p><p></p><p><strong>Levelling differently</strong>. </p><p>Level differences usually meant a 1-2 game difference in level, that was all. And being different levels was not nearly as critical in pre-3E D&D especially if you were not a spellcaster. </p><p></p><p><strong>Buying guard dogs, henchmen and alchemist's fire instead of fighting.</strong></p><p>That kinda depended on the party and the GM. I've seen some paranoid groups of players that had gypsy wagons tricked out with gear to prevent them from so much as losing a hit point, but henchmen and the rest were adjuncts to fightning, not a replacement for it.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Regularly dying and being replaced by new characters.</strong> </p><p>It could be a pain, but most GMs I played under could tailor an encounter to keep the game from being a non-sensical meat grinder. Some people seemed to have liked that aspect of it, but we found it trite and boring after the first few times.</p><p></p><p><strong>DM vs. Players, not DM working with players. </strong></p><p>While I've seen this happen it tended to be a self-correcting situation. There were so many games and GMs floating around here in the early days that if a GM got uppity, players just left him for another. I know there was even 'GM advice' to never give the players an even break but for the most part we treated that like the sophmoric nonsense it was.</p><p></p><p><strong>Clumsy pastiche of pop culture, pulp fiction and mythology. </strong></p><p>I don't understand this one. This doesn't happen <em>post-</em>0/1/2E? Of course it does, depending on the GM's world.</p><p></p><p>I can't say I've ever seen anyone ever, <em>ever </em>run D&D - or any other RPG - as some strict 'you're in the days of King Arthur' re-creation of any one time period or use a narrow genre. Maybe there are some that did but I've not encountered them in 30+ years of gaming.</p><p></p><p><strong>Simple game, few options. </strong></p><p>We made it a non-simple game with many options. Pretty much every third-party publisher recognized the holes in D&D early on and made things to fix them. Extra classes, sub-systems such as skills, romance rules, alchemy rules, rules for building your own magic items, additional or replacement weapons systems, replacement magic systems (Rolemaster began as one of these), re-done spells, additional spells (including 'utility spells' for things like 'Make Pregnancy Easier'), we used what we needed. There was quite a wealth of it, even in the pre-internet days. If there was a hole, people filled it and this is not even counting all the <em>Dragon </em>articles. Of xourse back then, there were many more magazines for gaming. White Dwarf was an awesome gaming magazine before it became a miniatures catalog. Different Worlds, Space Gamer, Fantasy Gamer, and others were chock full of variants, fixes and substitutions for various systems.</p><p></p><p><strong>Dungeon as an underworld, where every PC cannot see in the dark and every NPC can. </strong></p><p>Um, every PC except for humans already could see in the dark. I don't understand why this statement is here.</p><p></p><p><strong>Sprawling, nonsensical mega-dungeons. </strong></p><p>That got old really quickly, so we stopped doing it. We were doing 'hey dungeons had to have water sources, food sources, etc etc' long before I saw the first articles about such things.</p><p></p><p><strong>Wilderness adventures. </strong></p><p>This is different between editions? I suppose so if you were part of that earliest year or 18 months of OD&D gaming, but by the time the third supplement was out people were roaming all over the wilderness and having entire campaigns inside cities, etc.</p><p></p><p><strong>Invincible overlord. </strong></p><p>The single best third-party resource for many, many years. It was sad that subsequent things from Judge's Guild never followed up on it's greatness. </p><p></p><p><strong>NPCs and PCs follow different rules. </strong></p><p>Yeah, that stuck in our craw a lot. We disliked it intensely. One of the reasons for moving away from D&D in some people's cases.</p><p></p><p><strong>Several different parallel versions of the game. </strong></p><p>You mean 'several' as in 'two'? I never knew anyone to use the Basic D&D line for anything except idea books; never saw anyone play it after 1E was introduced. It might have been something you gave your kid brother for Christmas but by June he'd have graduated to 1E and put that away. We did mine the modules for maps and ideas, especially the very nice Known World series, and Night's Dark Terror. But at the end of the day we didn't consider Basic 'the real game'.</p><p></p><p>Now, here is where my experience is significantly different from people who came into the game later. I was almost 17 when I was introduced to the three brown books. D&D was something college kids did, not high-schoolers. I was already in college by the time I saw the first Basic sets, so they held no interest to me or the majority of the people who were gaming at the time. It was something we'd already passed through and felt that 'races as classes' was a huge step backwards. We were always kinda baffled it even existed.</p><p></p><p><strong>Everyone had house rules. </strong></p><p>Here you finally come to the main difference. </p><p></p><p>It was simply <em>assumed </em>one would have a hefty book of house rules, or be using one of the more extensive third-party system replacement texts. After seeing games with skill systems or better magic systems, it was simply impossible to go back to D&D-as-written, so we only seldom did. </p><p></p><p>Sure, we'd get a burst of nostalgia where we're go 'Hey, let's get back simple ol' D&D as written'. <em>'Yeah</em>, that'll be <em>fun</em>!" and it would last three or four games before we'd remember <em>why </em>we used house rules, and start a new house-rules campaign.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="WayneLigon, post: 4448361, member: 3649"] [B]Rolling 3d6 in order for each ability score. [/B] Never seen anyone do this, ever. [B]Complicated and scattered charts and tables. [/B] It was a pain, but almost all games had tons of charts and tables early on until we started seeing skill-based games. It was just the way things were done. [B]Races as classes. [/B] Only OD&D does this; it was something quickly dropped when 1E came out and never used again. [B]Weak low-level mages and powerful high-levle mages.[/B] It was frustrating. [B]Levelling differently[/B]. Level differences usually meant a 1-2 game difference in level, that was all. And being different levels was not nearly as critical in pre-3E D&D especially if you were not a spellcaster. [B]Buying guard dogs, henchmen and alchemist's fire instead of fighting.[/B] That kinda depended on the party and the GM. I've seen some paranoid groups of players that had gypsy wagons tricked out with gear to prevent them from so much as losing a hit point, but henchmen and the rest were adjuncts to fightning, not a replacement for it. [B]Regularly dying and being replaced by new characters.[/B] It could be a pain, but most GMs I played under could tailor an encounter to keep the game from being a non-sensical meat grinder. Some people seemed to have liked that aspect of it, but we found it trite and boring after the first few times. [B]DM vs. Players, not DM working with players. [/B] While I've seen this happen it tended to be a self-correcting situation. There were so many games and GMs floating around here in the early days that if a GM got uppity, players just left him for another. I know there was even 'GM advice' to never give the players an even break but for the most part we treated that like the sophmoric nonsense it was. [B]Clumsy pastiche of pop culture, pulp fiction and mythology. [/B] I don't understand this one. This doesn't happen [I]post-[/I]0/1/2E? Of course it does, depending on the GM's world. I can't say I've ever seen anyone ever, [I]ever [/I]run D&D - or any other RPG - as some strict 'you're in the days of King Arthur' re-creation of any one time period or use a narrow genre. Maybe there are some that did but I've not encountered them in 30+ years of gaming. [B]Simple game, few options. [/B] We made it a non-simple game with many options. Pretty much every third-party publisher recognized the holes in D&D early on and made things to fix them. Extra classes, sub-systems such as skills, romance rules, alchemy rules, rules for building your own magic items, additional or replacement weapons systems, replacement magic systems (Rolemaster began as one of these), re-done spells, additional spells (including 'utility spells' for things like 'Make Pregnancy Easier'), we used what we needed. There was quite a wealth of it, even in the pre-internet days. If there was a hole, people filled it and this is not even counting all the [I]Dragon [/I]articles. Of xourse back then, there were many more magazines for gaming. White Dwarf was an awesome gaming magazine before it became a miniatures catalog. Different Worlds, Space Gamer, Fantasy Gamer, and others were chock full of variants, fixes and substitutions for various systems. [B]Dungeon as an underworld, where every PC cannot see in the dark and every NPC can. [/B] Um, every PC except for humans already could see in the dark. I don't understand why this statement is here. [B]Sprawling, nonsensical mega-dungeons. [/B] That got old really quickly, so we stopped doing it. We were doing 'hey dungeons had to have water sources, food sources, etc etc' long before I saw the first articles about such things. [B]Wilderness adventures. [/B] This is different between editions? I suppose so if you were part of that earliest year or 18 months of OD&D gaming, but by the time the third supplement was out people were roaming all over the wilderness and having entire campaigns inside cities, etc. [B]Invincible overlord. [/B] The single best third-party resource for many, many years. It was sad that subsequent things from Judge's Guild never followed up on it's greatness. [B]NPCs and PCs follow different rules. [/B] Yeah, that stuck in our craw a lot. We disliked it intensely. One of the reasons for moving away from D&D in some people's cases. [B]Several different parallel versions of the game. [/B] You mean 'several' as in 'two'? I never knew anyone to use the Basic D&D line for anything except idea books; never saw anyone play it after 1E was introduced. It might have been something you gave your kid brother for Christmas but by June he'd have graduated to 1E and put that away. We did mine the modules for maps and ideas, especially the very nice Known World series, and Night's Dark Terror. But at the end of the day we didn't consider Basic 'the real game'. Now, here is where my experience is significantly different from people who came into the game later. I was almost 17 when I was introduced to the three brown books. D&D was something college kids did, not high-schoolers. I was already in college by the time I saw the first Basic sets, so they held no interest to me or the majority of the people who were gaming at the time. It was something we'd already passed through and felt that 'races as classes' was a huge step backwards. We were always kinda baffled it even existed. [B]Everyone had house rules. [/B] Here you finally come to the main difference. It was simply [I]assumed [/I]one would have a hefty book of house rules, or be using one of the more extensive third-party system replacement texts. After seeing games with skill systems or better magic systems, it was simply impossible to go back to D&D-as-written, so we only seldom did. Sure, we'd get a burst of nostalgia where we're go 'Hey, let's get back simple ol' D&D as written'. [I]'Yeah[/I], that'll be [I]fun[/I]!" and it would last three or four games before we'd remember [I]why [/I]we used house rules, and start a new house-rules campaign. [/QUOTE]
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