How did you play back in the day? - forked from Q's Leveling Comparisons

[Storm Raven]

That's a situation pretty well designed not to get "cleaned out" by any particular group of characters. As a consequence, it does not lend itself to calculations on that basis (double or triple XP needed to "level up" a party being a good start in my experience, more depending on actual traffic). Moreover, returns per hour of play time may well be lower.

Why would a change in venue change the amount of experience necessary to raise in level?

 

[Ariosto]

Why would a change in venue change the amount of experience necessary to raise in level?

Although the number of XP needed is constant, the rate of acquisition can vary.

By 1987, not only had TSR published many more modules but I had more money to spend on them. I did not find so much worth the purchase, for the most part sharing the estimation of "classics" you mentioned.

My formative experience, though, was one in which modules did not figure as a (much less THE) staple. I have noted some contributing factors.

There is, I think, a notable correspondence with the number of computer games in BASIC that I either transcribed from magazines or wrote for myself (the Commodore 64 having been a delight from what must seem now nearly a primeval perspective).

It was another time, and even at that time things were different in other places. A friend of mine, born into a richer house, had full runs of The Dragon and Different Worlds, and seemingly every module from TSR as well as a good few from Judges Guild.

On the other hand, he was stuck with a TRS-80 on which to play Temple of Apshai ...

 

[Storm Raven]

Although the number of XP needed is constant, the rate of acquisition can vary.

It can. You have yet to explain how a change in venue changes the rate of acquisition.

 

[Ariosto]

Then again, if memory serves, Dungeons of Daggorath was only for the "Trash-Eighty".

Don't worry too much; it'll happen to you ... even if you're not a geek. Everything is "old school" someday.

 

[Ariosto]

It can. You have yet to explain how a change in venue changes the rate of acquisition.

In today's RPGA "Living Forgotten Realms" scenario (whatever it may be), you'll go pretty much bam bam bam along a "railroad". It doesn't much matter if you somehow jump the rails, either; there are precisely as many Gewgaws +X as folks who want, and are permitted, to get 'em. It's the Infinite Improbability Treasure.

I forked over some filthy lucre for a Goodman Games hardbound of low-level 3E scenarios. My direst disgust was at freaking identical bloated stat blocks on facing pages. In gargantuan type, between humongous margins. Then I took some deep, relaxing breaths ... and proceeded to feast my eyes on what I hope was the greatest distillation ever of "all roads lead to the next encounter" design.

In an original-model dungeon, you did not want to go for every treasure. That would just get your chump character killed over some fake Rolex. About one in twenty random stashes was a good score, and the really big payoffs took some casing. Only a sorry punk could get behind throwing down with every cockroach to wander by. In fact, it was cooler to avoid the cruising bruisers.

 

[Storm Raven]

In an original-model dungeon, you did not want to go for every treasure. That would just get your chump character killed over some fake Rolex. About one in twenty random stashes was a good score, and the really big payoffs took some casing. Only a sorry punk could get behind throwing down with every cockroach to wander by. In fact, it was cooler to avoid the cruising bruisers.

Yet this doesn't change the rate of advancement. You miss one treasure haul, you go find another. This is the same whether you are in a module type dungeon or a megadungeon.

I know that back in the day me and my friends decided that random monsters and treasure were an incredibly dumb way to play pretty much within weeks of picking up the game. And (rightly or wrongly) we looked down on anyone who played that way as being uninspired and unimaginative. I still think that random play is best left in the dustbin of history.

Your rant about Goodman Games modules (which are by and large quite good) seems to mark your problem as simply being that you don't like anything more recently made than 1977. Which is your perrogative, but kind of sad.

 

[Ariosto]

Tip off the Big Fish by hitting down the hall, and he's liable to shut up close as a clam with soldiers and and booby-traps. Or just pull up stakes and relocate, leaving you back at square one.

This is what wise guys who whine about how "weak" magic-users are don't understand. Read Languages can be way more profitable than Sleep, if you're on recon and know what you're about.

The 1E PHB put RULE #1 front and center: Keep on objective. If you don't even have an objective, then you're screwed.

 

[Ariosto]

This is the same whether you are in a module type dungeon or a megadungeon.

Take it from a fool who knows from hard experience: it ain't nearly the same. An "adventure path" has an investment in your character's survival; the dungeon does not.

There are better and worse modules. In my (perhaps unrepresentative) experience, they tend to the worse. They seem to lean more nowadays to some hamster-fancying trucker just sitting on his paws while you close in noisily to disarticulate him.

He's got loot because he's got a good racket; and he didn't get that by being a dumb schmuck.

 

[Storm Raven]

Take it from a fool who knows from hard experience: it ain't nearly the same. An "adventure path" has an investment in your character's survival; the dungeon does not.

No, an adventure path doesn't. Just ask people who've played through meatgrinders like Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I also didn't note the G1 series or the A series (for example) having indicated any kind of plot immunity for PCs. You may have decided there should be, but nothing in the modules even hints at anything of the sort.

There are better and worse modules. In my (perhaps unrepresentative) experience, they tend to the worse. They seem to lean more nowadays to some hamster-fancying trucker just sitting on his paws while you close in noisily to disarticulate him.

While random monsters and treasure scattered through a megadungeon is better? I guess different strokes, but I think you are way off base. I've seen some bad modules (The Forest Oracle, Three Days to Kill and Thieves in the Forest spring to mind for me), but many are quite good, from old classics like Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, to new WotC products like Sunless Citadel to even recent third party stuff like Castle Whiterock.

 

[Ariosto]

ToEE is a meatgrinder because it's bad in ways Tomb of Horrors really is not. In every attempt on it to which I have been privy, the Temple has in the analysis just bored people if not to death then to more interesting precincts.