D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[pemerton]

And here I was thinking it was a high-score mechanic akin trying to get your initials in the top slot of a Gauntlet arcade machine. How much gold could you acquire before GAME OVER.

That's exactly what it was. That's why, in his DMG, Gygax complains about GM's who allow their players to get the high score without having to try hard.

"Trying hard" in this context is where the skilled/smart play comes in. I agree with @Willie the Duck that in this context we're not talking about rocket science. But it's clear from how Gygax describes play in his PHB and DMG, and also from Moldvay's advice to GMs in his Basic rules, that their basic conception of play was of players who will explore the dungeon, exploit their fictional positioning in doing so, and need both a bit of that skill and a bit of luck to grab the gold. That's why such a premium is placed on GM's coming up with new monsters, new traps, new "tricks", etc - these are the analogue of adding new levels and/or new special features to the Gauntlet machine.

My view - a conjecture, rather than an empirically confirmed fact - is that D&D became popular in the late 70s and early 80s despite, and not because of, this assumed default playstyle. I think players liked pretending to be someone else, and enjoyed the heroic fantasy aspect, more than they really wanted to participate in the gameplay ecology of poking and prodding statutes, escalating through ear seekers and wire-netted ear trumpets, etc. Hence why 2nd ed AD&D veered pretty sharply away from the default assumption and there's been no return to it since by WotC. (And while the OSR is fairly vocal, I doubt that in numerical terms it is more than a fraction of the number of players using 5e D&D to play in the post-DL/2nd ed AD&D style.)

 

[Remathilis]

My view - a conjecture, rather than an empirically confirmed fact - is that D&D became popular in the late 70s and early 80s despite, and not because of, this assumed default playstyle. I think players liked pretending to be someone else, and enjoyed the heroic fantasy aspect, more than they really wanted to participate in the gameplay ecology of poking and prodding statutes, escalating through ear seekers and wire-netted ear trumpets, etc. Hence why 2nd ed AD&D veered pretty sharply away from the default assumption and there's been no return to it since by WotC. (And while the OSR is fairly vocal, I doubt that in numerical terms it is more than a fraction of the number of players using 5e D&D to play in the post-DL/2nd ed AD&D style.)

100% this.

 

[pemerton]

since the hide in shadow was not a magical ability, it meant that the damn thieves would not be stopped by magical means of detecting invisibility.

I'm not sure this is right:

Detect Invisibility spell (AD&D PHB, p 69; illusionists get the same effect as a 1st level spell): "he or she is able to clearly see any objects which are invisible, as well as astral, ethereal, hidden, invisible or out of phase creatures."

Gem of Seeing (AD&D DMG, p 145): "the gem of seeing enables the user to detect all hidden, illusory, invisible, astral, ethereal, or out of phase things within viewing range."

Description of Hide in Shadows ability (AD&D DMG, p 19): "Note also that a thief hiding in shadows is still subject to detection just as if he or she was invisible".​

In my experience, what @Remathilis has posted about high level AD&D thieves is exactly right.

 

[Helldritch]

This probably came back to DM experience, but I played a high level single class thief in 2e (16th level, namesake of this account) and I found that after a while, most of my class functions were severely outclassed by spells and magic items. Cloaks and boots of elvenkind, rings of invisibility, chimes of opening, knock, detect traps, spider climb etc all could make thief skills redundant. And backstab rarely did enough damage to harm a foe of suitable challenges, even if you could hit it at all! (No finesse weapons, and thieves weren't likely to have high strength).

I'm sure in a white room PvP scenario, a fighter or a thief could kill a magic user, but in practical adventuring the only thing a thief had going for them was they allowed a caster to not prep as many knock or invisibility spells. The best thing you could do with a thief was multi-class it with fighter (to get better backstabs and survival) or magic user (so that your magic came online at the time your thief skills become redundant. It's little surprise that thief is the class every race could multiclass combo with.

This maybe why you have such a low esteem of 1-2ed... One of the worst nightmare of a DMs is the damn high level thief that scouts the enemy stronghold, make a mental map (if not already linked to the party's wizard via some magic) and have the whole magic protected dungeon mapped (including the traps...). This have happened sooooo many times in my games. And yet, this is what the thief class was exactly about. Not allowing this would have made me a poor DM. Not allowing a thief to scout is gimping the class for no reason other reason than the DM wants to surprise the group. But not in my games.

The thief would roll his stealth, and once started, unless he made an obvious blunder, the thief would get a picture of the stronghold/dungeon layout and barring opening doors, its inhabitants too. Some stronghold were protected against magical scrying but a thief could do what a wizard would not. But this would be picture of what was in the stronghold/dungeon at that time. It was no garantee that the trolls you saw in room 21 would still be there when the party finally get to that room.

As for the low strength thief...
The spell strength was there. So were potions of giant strength. And what about girdles. The customization of a character in early edition was through the items said character would find. The DM's job is to make sure that everyone have a chance to shine. I know my thieves were properly equipped to be deadly. Potions were their best friends.

As for multiclassing....
Thief was the best choice for multiclassing because all races were unlimited in its advancement. It was there to help demi-humans to stay relevant at a high level play. Terror is the wizard/thief. Especially a gray elf... With a limit of 11th level with intel less than 19, the grey elf could be almost impossible to track. Non-detection paired with improved invisibility would make the thief backstab all the time. Same with mirror image but only to a lesser extent. Which image is the real one? Where is the thief exactly and presenting your back to a thief was not a good idea. The gnome illusionist thief was of the same power but lower in levels.

Yep, I think your experience in 1-2ed was not a good one. Thieves fared way better in my games than in your experience.

 

[Helldritch]

I'm not sure this is right:

Detect Invisibility spell (AD&D PHB, p 69; illusionists get the same effect as a 1st level spell): "he or she is able to clearly see any objects which are invisible, as well as astral, ethereal, hidden, invisible or out of phase creatures."​

​

Gem of Seeing (AD&D DMG, p 145): "the gem of seeing enables the user to detect all hidden, illusory, invisible, astral, ethereal, or out of phase things within viewing range."​

​

Description of Hide in Shadows ability (AD&D DMG, p 19): "Note also that a thief hiding in shadows is still subject to detection just as if he or she was invisible".​

In my experience, what @Remathilis has posted about high level AD&D thieves is exactly right.

I was referring to spells such as invisibility purge, spell glyph with dispel magic and so on.
Of all the thing you have shared, you either have to cast it, or activate it. If it is not cast, you do not have the benefits of seeing the thief. If it is not in use, you do not have the chance to see the thief.

And even then, if the thief has non detection cast on him, tough luck for the caster/user.

Again, no one expect a thief, especially high level, to be caught easily. Only a DM that hates to see his dungeon revealed will try to gimp a thief in such a way. It was not my case. Nor was it the case of a lot of DM I knew back then. There have been stories that I have heard but they usually implied player vs player....

 

[pemerton]

technically there was some extremely broad examples even in OD&D about creating some magic items (besides the scroll-and-potion examples, there was, as I recall, a Ring of X-Ray Vision and maybe a +1 Magic Sword) listed somewhere in the books.

Gygax's DMG discusses potions, spell scrolls, a scroll of protection from petrification and a ring of spell storing. The PHB, under the Enchant an Item spell, mentions a cloak of displacement, sword of dragon slaying, and ring of shooting stars.

The Expert Book has 20 arrows +1, plate mail +1, a crystal ball, a ring of spell storing and a ring of x-ray vision listed as examples.

I don't know what's in the original books.

Yet in the wild it was often a one way (and thus, pointless, since there wasn't anything particularly useful to do with more gold) street.

As an AD&D GM I followed Gygax's advice: I allowed sale of magic items, which yielded XP equal to the gp received, rather than the lesser XP award if the item was kept (DMG pp 85, 121) but did not allow purchase of magic items (following the general tenor of the advice for playing NPCs given in the DMG pp 39, 103-4; I suspect that somewhere in the B/X or AD&D rulebooks there was also an express admonition against allowing purchase of magic items, although I don't know where to find it now).

Honestly, how much people avoided fights even early on is often overstated and/or parochial; I saw an awful lot of combats in games up and down the West Coast in '75 and '76 to buy that the game was ever played as combat avoidant as some people try to say.

Gygax says that "Combat is a common pursuit in the vast majority of adventures" - DMG p 61. Avoiding rather than fighting wandering monsters was advised, because wandering monsters tend to have little or no treasure. But the default way of getting the treasure from a monster's lair was to fight the monster!

 

[Thomas Shey]

The Expert Book has 20 arrows +1, plate mail +1, a crystal ball, a ring of spell storing and a ring of x-ray vision listed as examples.

That's probably a restatement of the OD&D listing, as it sounds pretty familiar.ing purchase of magic items, although I don't know where to find it now).

Gygax says that "Combat is a common pursuit in the vast majority of adventures" - DMG p 61. Avoiding rather than fighting wandering monsters was advised, because wandering monsters tend to have little or no treasure. But the default way of getting the treasure from a monster's lair was to fight the monster!

Of course wandering monsters were the hardest to avoid fights with, because it was difficult to detect them before engagement. It wasn't impossible, but other than keeping scouts out (and unless you were doing the extremely ruthless disposable-henchmen method, that had its own issues) by the time you could detect them they could detect you, and I've noted the problems with fleeing from many monsters before.

 

[pemerton]

That's probably a restatement of the OD&D listing, as it sounds pretty familiar.

I've dug up my copy of Men & Magic. Of course the editing is impeccable, so spell research is found on p 34 (after the spell descriptions) but making magic items is in the MU class description (p 7).

The list is: spell scrolls, potion of healing, potion of giant strength, 20 magical arrows, +1 armour, a wand of cold, and a ring of X-ray vision.

Of course it's not the same as Expert. Here are the comparisons (OD&D vs Expert vs AD&D):

Scroll of spells (100 gp & 1 week per level / --- / no gp cost given but 1 day per level)

Potion of Healing (250 gp & 1 week / --- / 200 gp & 2 days)

Potion of Giant Strength (1,000 gp & 4 weeks / --- / 500 to 750 gp & 5 to 8 days)

20 arrows +1 (1,000 gp & 4 weeks / 10,000 gp & 1 month / ---)

Armour +1 (2,000 gp & 2 months / 10,000 gp & 6 months / - - -)

Ring of X-Ray Vision (50,000 gp & 1 year / 100,000 gp & 1 year / ---)

Wand of Cold (10,000 gp & 6 months / ---/ ---)

Ring of Spell Storing (--- / 10,000 gp & 1 month per spell level / 5,000 gp + a scroll of the spells + a Wish and possibly a Permanency spell + Enchant an Item)

Crystal Ball (--- / 30,000 gp & 6 months / ---)​

I think it would be generous to call this a system. It's barely even a framework.

 

[jasper]

1E Player running 2 PC at same time uncommon to common 5E One Player one pc
1E Player running 3 PCs at same time very rare 5E ONE PLAYER ONE PC
1E Dice rollers were created in basic on TRS 80 with 16K memory. 5E Dice rollers are free from google play

 

[Remathilis]

This maybe why you have such a low esteem of 1-2ed... One of the worst nightmare of a DMs is the damn high level thief that scouts the enemy stronghold, make a mental map (if not already linked to the party's wizard via some magic) and have the whole magic protected dungeon mapped (including the traps...). This have happened sooooo many times in my games. And yet, this is what the thief class was exactly about. Not allowing this would have made me a poor DM. Not allowing a thief to scout is gimping the class for no reason other reason than the DM wants to surprise the group. But not in my games.

The thief would roll his stealth, and once started, unless he made an obvious blunder, the thief would get a picture of the stronghold/dungeon layout and barring opening doors, its inhabitants too. Some stronghold were protected against magical scrying but a thief could do what a wizard would not. But this would be picture of what was in the stronghold/dungeon at that time. It was no garantee that the trolls you saw in room 21 would still be there when the party finally get to that room.

As for the low strength thief...
The spell strength was there. So were potions of giant strength. And what about girdles. The customization of a character in early edition was through the items said character would find. The DM's job is to make sure that everyone have a chance to shine. I know my thieves were properly equipped to be deadly. Potions were their best friends.

As for multiclassing....
Thief was the best choice for multiclassing because all races were unlimited in its advancement. It was there to help demi-humans to stay relevant at a high level play. Terror is the wizard/thief. Especially a gray elf... With a limit of 11th level with intel less than 19, the grey elf could be almost impossible to track. Non-detection paired with improved invisibility would make the thief backstab all the time. Same with mirror image but only to a lesser extent. Which image is the real one? Where is the thief exactly and presenting your back to a thief was not a good idea. The gnome illusionist thief was of the same power but lower in levels.

Yep, I think your experience in 1-2ed was not a good one. Thieves fared way better in my games than in your experience.

Ergo why experiences aren't all that universal. I know in hindsight we weren't exactly playing AD&D as Gygax intended, but even in our closest-to-RAW days, Thieves were quickly found to be a role best served by a multi-class or an NPC. Solo-scouting a dungeon was a suicide run; the best you got was a few rooms or hallways down (just far enough you could pull, er... retreat, to your allies if spotted).

As we grew older and more mature, we started finding a better feel for thieves. However, that also did coincide with our moving to 3e at the same time. Rogues faired significantly better than normal thieves, if only for the added survival abilities (uncanny dodge, evasion) and more useful sneak attack rules. It's hard to say how much of that was due to 3e's rules and how much was just the general maturing of our groups (moving from teens to young adults) but it took a long time for thieves/rogues to feel like anything more than a weak fighter with infinite detect traps.