Is the AD&D 1E Revival here to stay?

[Prince of Happiness]

It wasn't until about 1993 (when I was 15) that I was actually able get a job and start buying gaming material. I spent most of the rest of high school assembling my 1E collection. Fortunately for me, alot of people wanted to clean out their attics when I put the word out that I was looking for old gaming stuff.

These days, I have a sizable 1E and 2E collection. The older material is GREAT, it just has a much more epic, legendary feel to it than the 3E material. I like the 3E rules set but I still tend to bring 1E or 2E material into 3E rather than play 3E-specific stuff. My next campaign is going to be based around Pommeville (from Cleric's Challenge) and include the "first adventure" with Castle Mistamere included in the D&D basic set in 1983.

We're about the same age and that sounds almost exactly like the same "journey" I took to collect 1E stuff...well, outside of the parents saying no and all that jazz.

And point the 2nd: Pommeville!!! EEEEEEEEEE!!! Every homebrew setting (and published ones I flesh out) I've made has a Pommeville in it.

 

[Dykstrav]

Yeah, somehow Pommeville always seems to click. It just seems like the neat little village where adventurers would be sitting on their hands looking for a ruin to loot.

I still use the dungeon generator from the 1E Dungeon Master's Guide. I mostly read my 1E material for inspiration for my 3.5 games. To me, the 1E appeal is in presentation more than rules. I tend to enjoy the games where everyone is single-classed (or perhaps with one other class such as a prestige class), all the monsters are straight out of the Monster Manual, the DM has hand-drawn the dungeon on graph paper, and no one seems to care if all the rooms are 20 x 30 chambers with locked doors and a monster or trap behind them.

I've played games like this in 1E, 2E, 3E, and 3.5. The rules kind of fade into the background in fun games like this. You don't always have to have a printed sheaf of adventure notes, a map you made in Campaign Cartographer, and a boatload of carefully selected minis to have a good time at the table. Just seems like 1E players cater more to this type of game. Maybe it has something to do with how common computers are these days...

 

[Crimhthan_The_Great]

Oddly (IMO), OSRIC threads in the Dragonsfoot "1E" forum are pretty much verboten. As you mention, OSRIC discussion is allowed in the "Other" category at Dragonfoot.

You must remember that the "1E" forum at DF is dominated by the BtB crowd and as such OSRIC is considered to be heretical. Nice folks really, just take the homebrew stuff someplace else.

 

[tx7321]

OSRIC is AD&D 1E BTB, and these BTB rules were figured out largely at DF over the years by its members, and most confirmed by AD&D's creator, from what I understand. Infact, if you don't understand the AD&D 1E rules, OSRIC is supposed to be a great place to read them in an understandable form (unlike the core books which I find sometimes confusing). OSRIC combat rules exclude a few things, but those are optional in the AD&D 1E game anyway; its differences are also due to legal reasons. DF does not object to OSRIC for its accuracy. Its the legal issues that worry them "will DF suffer if OSRIC is attacked by WOTC".

 

[Treebore]

Well, Papersand Paychecks has said that WOTC responded to OSRIC. Considering his plans to move forward the language of the response must have been very non-threatening.


If he is under no obligation to keep the response private he should probably scan it and make it available for those "skittish" about OSRIC. At the very least send certified copies to the variosu 3rd party publishers and request that they keep the info private.

What say you, P&P? Can you make the response public? Or at least communicate it to other third party publishers so they can all collectively assure everyone else that WOTC is OK with it?

 

[Nightfall]

*chuckles* Since when has WotC been EVER okay about sharing the market with ANYONE? I mean before the advent of 3rd edition?

 

[Treebore]

Before 3E? WOTC never had much reason to share the market. They had their card games and other companies had theirs.

As for TSR, no they didn't want to share. Kind of understandable considering how small the market was, but others managed to create a lot of cool stuff, such as Judges Guild.

I also don't believe the OGL would have happened if Peter Adkinson hadn't still been at the helm of WOTC. If the OGL had been talked about afterwards, when the Hasbro mooks had the final say, I don't think the OGL would have ever happened.

I've only met Peter A. once, and only talked to him for a few minutes, but I definitely don't think he is a fundamentally greedy guy, and he seemed to me to love D&D just as much as anyone else I know.

So I think everyone who has been making a go of it under the OGL should be very glad that he was at the helm when this OGL ball started rolling. Hasbro would have blown that ball to bits.

 

[Crimhthan_The_Great]

OSRIC is AD&D 1E BTB, and these BTB rules were figured out largely at DF over the years by its members, and most confirmed by AD&D's creator, from what I understand. Infact, if you don't understand the AD&D 1E rules, OSRIC is supposed to be a great place to read them in an understandable form (unlike the core books which I find sometimes confusing). OSRIC combat rules exclude a few things, but those are optional in the AD&D 1E game anyway; its differences are also due to legal reasons. DF does not object to OSRIC for its accuracy. Its the legal issues that worry them "will DF suffer if OSRIC is attacked by WOTC".

DF management worries about the legal issues, the 1E forum dominant group; however, is not worried about legal issues. If you followed the posts against OSRIC by that 1E froum dominant group, it is obvious that the legal issues are not the basis of their outright hatred of OSRIC, again OSRIC although very BtB is also the ultimate homebrew since it is completely rewritten. Again they are a nice group of folks, but they are not going to go for any rewritting of the canon materials. At least that is the conclusion I have come to from reading the posts against OSRIC. The non-BtB crowd who embraces homebrew/house rules is very much in favor of OSRIC and how it can bring a lot of "old school" materials into print for AD&D 1E. Although, as an aside, as one who started playing in 1971 with the Chainmail Fantasy rules, I have a hard time calling AD&D 1E old school, I (with no disrespect intended) consider it new school and tend to forget that anything has been published after it.

 

[tx7321]

I'm with Nightfall on this, WOTC likely didn't say "we have no real objections" I'm sure they objected. What they DIDN'T apparently do, however, is take legal action (usually a SD letter). That is what the publishers collectively need to realize is important. Another thing that just occured to me: If HASBRO lost a case like this, it might, just might, put into play alot of other game systems that have been defended on the same bogus grounds over the years. Yeah, I'd give it a 0.0% WOTC does anything but blow smoke.

Crim: "If you followed the posts against OSRIC by that 1E froum dominant group, it is obvious that the legal issues are not the basis of their outright hatred of OSRIC, again OSRIC although very BtB is also the ultimate homebrew since it is completely rewritten."

PLEASE supply a link to this, do you have an example. I've also read most, if not all, of those old posts, and don't remember any "hatred" from DF regulars (well there were 2 nuts who were both banned from DF because of their rude behavior). Also, your above statement is illogical. "Homebrew" by definition means changed or added rules to give a new flavor. OSRIC doesn't do that. OSRIC rewords the AD&D 1E rules so that its new artistic expression...and its BTB. Thus they are in effect the old game reworded. Period...end of story. DF as a community has been VERY supportive of OSRIC, Mythmere and Papers and Paychecks. Its the management, for what ever reason, that has been unwilling (so far) to offer it a "home" as it has C&C.

I suggest you go back and reread those old DF posts. It was infact the legal concerns that prompted the managers and mods there to remove OSRIC from the AD&D 1E section and to not agree to give it a forum of its own (not wanting to jeaprodize their own efforts to produce free 1E material). If your really curious though, the easiest thing to do would be to ask at DF in their general forum (as Papers and Paychecks I think suggested above) why the management made those choices. I'm confident they'd give you the same reasons I just did.

 

[Storm Raven]

Yes, and they could attempt to sue me in Britain too. I think they'd lose.

They don't have to sue you in Britain. They can sue you in the U.S., if your material ever makes it into the U.S. via "stream of commerce" (a basis for personal jurisdiction in U,S. law). They could then seize anything that enters the U.S. that you produced.

A key point here is that the OGL does NOT specify which law governs the agreement; and since I'm a UK citizen who distributed OSRIC from Britain, any attempt to sue would have to take place in the UK.

This is wrong under U.S. personal jurisidiction rules. They may not be able to attach your U.K. assets with a U.S. judgment, but bringing suit against you in the U.S. is certainly doable under U.S. laws.