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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jan van Leyden" data-source="post: 6116549" data-attributes="member: 20307">Thanks, Merric, for your analysis! AD&D is a different kind of beast in my humble opinion, as it relies a lot on interpetration compared to 3.X and 4e.The latter games try to give you a framework. You can easily run it in carefree AD&D mode if you use it as such: listen to the description of the player, call for a ftting check and assign a DC to it. It's a bit more technical compared to the rules-free approach of AD&D, but still easy and fast to handle.The situation changes if you open the gates to the flood of class/special/monster abilities. Now you have a formalized way to modify the basic mechanism or set your DC - and the players will force you to use it! They have bought this and that thing and who wants to see his ressource expenditure go to waste?"I attack the ogre with my spear and try to send him stumbling by twisting his legs" (-4 to attack; ogre falls prone if successfull) turns into "I perform a this-and-that maneuvre with my Knockdown Attack feat and using the Stick to the Ground class ability with my Ranseur of Proneitude. If I hit, I apply half damage, the ogre has to save at -6 or fall prone. If he falls down I get a free attack whenever he tries to get up. Oh, and don't forget the +2 attack bonus for all allies!"It is basically a philosophical question: do you want rules to help you tell a story or are they the vocabulary and grammar with which to stell a story?</blockquote>

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