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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1194825" data-attributes="member: 10201">That's certainly possible.  Mind you, i also played in other people's games, both during that time, and later.  And talked to still other gamers.  While my experiences were very atypical in some ways, in others (such as the absence of TPKs), they were very typical of gamers i talked to in the mid-late '80s.  It was just a given that (1) the GM would not set up potential TPK situations and (2) the PCs would have the common sense to retreat if necessary.  Oh, and as for remembering the characters: i don't.  I remember their demographics.  I couldn't tell you exactly how many characters i had, but i could tell you that a disproportionate number of them were priests.  And, like i said, i still have almost everybody's character sheets, and have somewhat recently pulled them out and compiled said demographic data, for other threads.First, to be clear, this was one campaign.  The main campaign.  I also ran groups as small as 2 players/2 characters at the same time.  And played in a couple of "normal-sized" groups (5-6 PCs--which, from talking to people and being in games, seems to be the norm that i've run into, WotC's research notwithstanding--i've always thought of 4 PCs as on the small side for D&D games, and only known one 3-player game that was healthy (as opposed to dying or trying to grow).  [Oh, and i don't trust the WotC research to be representative on two bases--one, they won't show us the data so i'm suspect on principle (never trust a survey that won't give you the raw data), and two, i saw the preliminary questions, and realized that, according to their screening, a "wasn't an active RPer", despite having 3 weekly games, because i wasn't playing D&D at the time.]Second, i said 12-20 characters quite deliberately--it was always much fewer players.  Due to circumstances too lengthy to go into here, the game started out with multiple PCs per player, and slowly weaned itself down to one player/one character. At any given point, there were typically 3-7 regular players, and 0-12 occasional players, with any given session generally having about half the occasionals show up.  So, most nights, we had 5-9 players.  And, like i said, i simultaneously ran campaigns for 3 or 4 different small groups: 2-4 players, one PC each.  And never had any TPKs for them, either.Rarely had more than a dozen players--usually more like 7 or 8.  Though, i did have 18 or 19 players *once*.  But, anyway, as for imbalance: it could be (c)--but i doubt it.  I regularly solicited feedback--going so far as to make up questionaires--to make sure i was giving people the game they wanted.  We changed rules if necessary.  As for not remembering--possible.  But the only times i remember really blatant balance problems were when we broke the rules. (The quickling monk, with 8x normal attacks per round, was definitely a problem.)I probably should have finished that off with two further bits of info.  First, none of those noticably (dis)empowered any class or race.  If anything, they exacerbated existing situations (wizards got more spells memorized (basically like the system in Arcana Unearthed); multiclassing had fewer penalties and more possibilities--things like that).  Most of them either applied to everybody equally (such as the death rules), or didn't really affect game balance at all (new alignment rules).  Oh, and by small type i meant 9pt, maybe 10pt (going on a visual estimate--i no longer have the software or hardware to read softcopy of those rules).But my point was not that i don't think there are any flaws with AD&D2--it's that i don't think they are noticably more severe than the problems with D&D3E.  The only element of the combat system i changed, frex, was initiative/attack order (oh--and made large shields a bit more effective).  Most of my changes were either small, or far from in-play balance (ability generation was significantly changed, frex).  The 2nd bit i should've mentioned is that it'd take me a *lot* more houserules to make D&D3E into a game i'd accept.  To get D&D3E to the same point as i'd gotten AD&D2 to would take every rule i'd used before (as i said, none of the changes i felt were "necessary" made it into the new version), plus a whole bunch of new ones.  And yet a few more if i were starting from D&D3.5E as the baseline.  So, should i really judge the quality of a game based on the houserules used to play it?  No--the quantity of houserules only tells you how closely the game approaches the group's ideal , not absolute quality.  I'm not about to claim that D&D3E is an all-around worse game, just because it would take me more effort to turn it into something i'd like.I never said i still played D&D of any flavor.  I did go looking for other games, and found them--at last count, i have about a hundred RPGs that i think are better than D&D (of any variety).  Some of them are D20 System.  I do know that, given the choice between AD&D2 or D&D3(.5)E, both run by the book with just the core rulebooks (and a quality GM), i'd pick AD&D2--i had less frustration with the rules, and thus more fun.  Now, the underlying framework of D20 System is a heck of a lot better--i'd pick Arcana Unearthed over either of the above options, and a fantasy system with a simplified Spycraft or BESM D20 combat system would be still better yet.So, by that standard, D&D3E is broken.  Or are you suddenly the sole arbiter of when houserules are "necessary"?</blockquote>

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