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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rogueattorney" data-source="post: 1790405" data-attributes="member: 17551">So it was first, it was "Satanic", and a few fortunate gamers had a decent DM...  That's why the 1e PHB went through 17 printings from 1978 to 1990?  Is it really THAT hard for you to say something nice about 1e? C'mon, give my some artistic license with a metaphor... Except we're not talking about the people who bought it new, and then abandoned it.  We're talking about the people who are still playing it, of which there are many.  The people who bought it for the "new" factor are the people who are now tired of 3.5 and are playing Exalted, breathlessly awaiting C&C, and desperatly scouring the Internet for the next hot new thing. The original game was indeed incomplete.  It was a supplement to the supplement of a midaeval miniatures game.  That it spawned an industry tells you how great it was.  It was written by war-gamers for war-gamers.  Strangely, it didn't catch on with war-gamers, but rather caught on more with the fantasy literature crowd.  It's pretty harsh to criticize the designers of OD&D with the benefit of hindsight as they ad-hoc'ed their supplement into a game.  Reading the old rules and The Strategic Review and the early The Dragon is exhilerating because you realize the creators are really figuring out what they have at the same time the audience is.  From '74 to '77, basically on the strength of the "complete non-draw" TSR went from what was essentially a non-entity to a rival to the big two (AH and SPI) serious gaming companies.  [I mean "serious" as in for the gaming hobbyist; obviously none of them rivaled Parker Brothers, Hasbro, and Milton Bradley - the "pop" gaming companies.] Then it did its job, didn't it.  I wonder what product is bringing in the 10 year olds to 3.5 now...  It certainly isn't the 350 page long PHB.  It's no secret that the RPGing community is getting older and older. Join the club.  Pretty much everybody did that.  Why is it bad?  It has no bearing on the quality of AD&D as a game system.  The fact was that people were getting into the game at a younger age back then.  B/X D&D was for that younger crowd.  I think a lot of us moved on to AD&D before we were really ready.  AD&D was written for a pretty high reading comprehension level.  Did I completely understand the rules at 11?  No.  Did I start to come around at 16?  Yup.  That's just growing up and getting smarter, and doesn't have anything to do with the game.  I think, more so than the games themselves, the problem was TSR's marketing of the two games. You make a few assumptions that are just plain wrong.1.  You are criticizing AD&D for failing to fulfill a purpose for which it wasn't designed.  AD&D wasn't the starter game.  It was written under the assumption that the reader was familiar with complex games, particularly OD&D.  TSR acknowledged this fact and produced B/X D&D for the newbie and non-hard core gamer set.  My main criticism of WotC with 3e (and TSR with 2e after 1993) has been that it ignores the non-hard core gamer.  While 3e might do a better job of introducing D&D to the newbie than 1e, it does a much poorer job than B/X D&D.2.  3e might do a good job of "keeping on target to its stated goals of encouraging variety", but what does this have to do with 1e?  The Ford F150 does a better job at being a pick-up truck than the Honda Civic.  Does that make it a better vehicle?  I don't know.  It probably depends on whether you want a pick-up truck or a sedan.  This highlights the big problem in these little edition wars:  The radically different design philosophies of the games makes it inherent that some will like one game and others will like the other game based on their own personal preferences.I don't think 1e fans should get all mad at 3e fans.  They're just gamers playing their game.  But I do believe that the fans of older editions of D&D have all sorts of justified reasons to be mad at first TSR and later WotC.  These are essentially the longest and most loyal supporters of a product who have been kicked to the curb and told "your money is no good here, please go away" for the last 15 to 20 years.  Unfortunately, their justified rancor is often targeted at (or perceived to be targeted at) those who play the new game.  And unfortunately, many fans of 3e would rather make fun of and demean fans of the older games than try to make a more hospitable gaming climate for the "old guard".  I believe that the biggest tradgedy of this whole edition mess is that it often prevents fans of what is nominally the same game from being able to have intelligent conversations with one another.R.A.</blockquote>

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