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

[Remathilis]

It's like a toolbox full of tools - if you've frequently got just the right tool on hand for a particular job that isn't much use for any other job, you still keep it in the box and pull it out when needed.

Better that than limiting yourself to just a few tools that sort-of get the job done but nowhere near as well as the bespoke-to-task ones.

But a bunch of mismatched tools aren't useful if they don't work together to get the project done. This is the equivalent of starting a band and your band's instruments include a concert piano, an electric base, a tambourine and a metal trashcan turned upside-down and beaten with sticks. Each will produce music and work on its own, but you gotta do a lot of work to make them all play nice together.

 

[Fifth Element]

It's like a toolbox full of tools - if you've frequently got just the right tool on hand for a particular job that isn't much use for any other job, you still keep it in the box and pull it out when needed.

Better that than limiting yourself to just a few tools that sort-of get the job done but nowhere near as well as the bespoke-to-task ones.

No, this doesn't work in this context. While this is a valid approach to designing a game, it does not accurately describe early D&D. Look at some other RPGs and you can see the design intent. In D&D is was more like "uh, how about this?" "Yeah write that down!"

 

[Hussar]

No, this doesn't work in this context. While this is a valid approach to designing a game, it does not accurately describe early D&D. Look at some other RPGs and you can see the design intent. In D&D is was more like "uh, how about this?" "Yeah write that down!"

Let's be fair though. When AD&D was being written, the notion of "game design" didn't really exist. They were very much making it up as they went along. Pretty much everything that came after was a reaction in some form to how D&D did it. Of course they were just throwing stuff against the wall to see what stuck. It's not like they could draw on hundreds or thousands or then tens of thousands of play hours to design stuff.

 

[Jahydin]

Don't get me started on the surprise rules! And whole PhDs could be written on the interaction, or lack thereof, between the ranger's class features that are related to surprise, the monk's ability to reduce the surprise chance (but in percentile amounts) and the thief's percentage chances to sneak around and to notice things.

It's an utter shambles.

Which, for me, is why it's still intriguing to this day, haha.

It's just this crazy, dusty, archaic tome of wonder.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Even that is very charitable, suggesting there was some kind of basis for the design.

Oh, there usually is; its just that every thing is designed in a vacuum without thought about the rest of the system. Its like a of off-the-cuff mid-game rulings encoded into rules.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Let's be fair though. When AD&D was being written, the notion of "game design" didn't really exist. They were very much making it up as they went along. Pretty much everything that came after was a reaction in some form to how D&D did it. Of course they were just throwing stuff against the wall to see what stuck. It's not like they could draw on hundreds or thousands or then tens of thousands of play hours to design stuff.

Not true. There was coherent design in a number of wargames of the time. Its just that for whatever reason (I suspect, again, being used to doing ad-hoc rules in refereed miniatures games) that rigor was not applied as well to D&D.

 

[Jahydin]

But a bunch of mismatched tools aren't useful if they don't work together to get the project done. This is the equivalent of starting a band and your band's instruments include a concert piano, an electric base, a tambourine and a metal trashcan turned upside-down and beaten with sticks. Each will produce music and work on its own, but you gotta do a lot of work to make them all play nice together.

I think this is a pretty good analogy of a group trying to play AD&D 100% RAW. But just like in your example, I think the problem comes from not understanding the instruments (rules) and confusion on which ones go best together in the first place.

Taking each rule in AD&D on their own, I think they're well thought out and mathematically sound. The issue is trying to put them all into play at once, especially if you don't have a solid grasp on them.

If you start with OD&D and/or Basic as a base, AD&D really is a kind of toolkit you can pull in just what you need and can get the exact "dungeon crawling" game you want.

 

[Jahydin]

I do have to say though, as a kid I was pretty blown away by all the neat ways you could use math to simulate real world situations. Spent a lot of time looking over the bell-curve graphs in the DMG and trying to work out what dice to use to get a 3-12 range. Thanks to AD&D alone, I was performing two class grades higher than my peers, lol.

 

[Fifth Element]

Let's be fair though. When AD&D was being written, the notion of "game design" didn't really exist. They were very much making it up as they went along. Pretty much everything that came after was a reaction in some form to how D&D did it. Of course they were just throwing stuff against the wall to see what stuck. It's not like they could draw on hundreds or thousands or then tens of thousands of play hours to design stuff.

I disagree, thus my reference to other early RPGs. RuneQuest 1st edition is contemporary to AD&D, and did not suffer from the same ad hoc nature in its ruleset.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I disagree, thus my reference to other early RPGs. RuneQuest 1st edition is contemporary to AD&D, and did not suffer from the same ad hoc nature in its ruleset.

At least to the same degree. You did see some cases of it present, but they were less frequent and less severe.