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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RFisher" data-source="post: 4450017" data-attributes="member: 3608">Rolling 3d6 in order for each ability score Playing AD&D (1e and 2e), my groups almost never did this. Other editions, however, we have. (And these days, I might be inclined to do it in AD&D as well.)The style of play in my groups, however, tends to favor player skill over mechanics. (Part of which is the players figuring out how to minimize the effect of their PCs’ mechanical disadvantages.) So, ability scores rarely have a huge impact on the game.Complicated and scattered charts and tables Playing classic (specifically B/X) D&D again, I was struck by how few and simple the mechanics are. You wouldn’t really gain much by unifying them.AD&D? My groups honestly played it closer to classic D&D than how it was written. We tended to only use a few charts during a session. The charts we used during character creation weren’t scattered.As a DM prepping, I always found the scattered and complicated charts part of the fun. Sparks to the imagination. With the result rarely used without tweaking.Races as classes This was honestly one of the reasons I originally abandoned classic D&D for AD&D fairly quickly. Coming back to classic D&D, however, I really like the effect it has. It tends to make demihumans as rare in the party as I expect them to be. Admittedly, this is a personal bias, but having so often played the sole human PC in parties in every game system I’ve played (unless human was the only choice), I find it a refreshing change-of-pace.And, yes, there are other ways to effect that, but there are other things about race-classes I like.Weak low-level mages and powerful high-level mages As I’ve said, my groups tend to favor player skill over mechanics. A PC is only useless if its player is useless. Furthermore, the wizards I was used to reading about never did a lot of magic. So, it never seemed so odd for low-level MUs to do the same.Coming back to classic D&D, the thing I noticed about low-level MUs was that my spells might be fewer than in other games, but they mostly just worked (didn’t require a roll) and were significantly more powerful.Can’t say that I ever played many high-level MUs. I don’t ever remembered feeling overshadowed by them, though. Just glad they were on my side. Again, this may come back to the fact that mechanics have never been overly important in my groups.Levelling differently If you ever did start to feel like the MU was getting too powerful, it helped when you gained a level and he didn’t. ^_^ I don’t ever remember this really meaning anything much to us.Buying guard dogs, henchmen and alchemist's fire instead of fighting Coming up with various schemes that we would like to if we could really go adventuring in a fantasy world—I think that was what D&D was really about to my old group. I don’t think we ever really cared if there were mechanics for something or whether we thought the DM might make it matter despite mechanics. We just enjoyed thinking about things and putting them into action. Alarm systems to use while camping. Approaches to exploring dungeons. How we’d stow our gear. How we’d camp, march, explore, or fight.Figuring out how to avoid a fight and still accomplish our goals? That’s something my groups have enjoyed in every game I’ve played. Plus, figuring out how to tilt things in our advantage when we can’t avoid a fight.Regularly dying and being replaced by new characters I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it so common as to be called “regularly”. (Well, maybe in the last T1–4 campaign, but that was 3.5e.) <shrug> Almost all of my PCs that have died have died because I made a poor—naw, an outright bad—decision. Creating new characters is always fun. In any case, I don’t think this has really been very different in any game I’ve played. Except for how long it may take you to get the next character ready.DM vs. Players, not DM working with players I haven’t found DM vs. players to work well in any system. If we were going to go that way, that might be the one thing that would make me suggest we go with 3e rather than most other systems. In classic D&D, IMHO, the DM has to really listen to the players and not be trying to screw them over (saving that for his NPCs to do) and the players have to be trusting and forgiving of the DM.Clumsy pastiche of pop culture, pulp fiction and mythology Hated it. Yet when I did embrace it, I found I enjoyed the game a lot more. I’m still doing my best to embrace rather than hate.Simple game, few options I’ve never felt there were few options. I’ve always felt free to do almost anything and leave it up to the DM to determine the results. Sure, there were limits. (“My first-level fighter grows wings and flies!”) But there were still enough options within those limits to seem unlimited.There were two things that bothered me. (1) When an increase in a mechanical number by one point made no difference. After years of trying to eliminate that kind of thing, I think I’m mostly over it. I still prefer to match the measuring resolution and the resolving resolution (ouch, I think I just hurt my brain) whenever possible, though.(2) Not enough covered by the rules at the same level of detail and not “realistic” enough results. After many years of chasing those, I’ve come to prefer higher level abstractions, more rules where I find them fun and less rules where I don’t, and simple mechanics with freedom for the DM to override “bad” results.Dungeon as an underworld, where every PC cannot see in the dark and every NPC can As the only human in the party, it was more often every PC except me can see in the dark.Sprawling, nonsensical mega-dungeons For good or ill, I haven’t really experienced one.Wilderness adventures Can’t really say this has been different in the different games I’ve played. Sometimes the adventure’s underground, sometimes a fortress, sometimes the wilderness, sometimes in the village, sometimes in town.I only recently tried the “hexploration” style of game.Invincible overlord Never seen one.NPCs and PCs follow different rules I don’t think I ever minded monsters following different rules. Although, I did appreciate it whenever monsters did fit the PC rules better. I think I long suffered from trying to make NPCs fit PC rules. Once I accepted that the PC rules weren’t meant to be a general simulation system...well, that was part of more generally moving away from looking for simulation.Everyone had house rules. This is another, “no different from any other system I’ve played.”</blockquote>

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