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

[Aaron L]

We always used THAC0, the DM always told us the AC we needed to hit and we never relied on him to tell us if we hit or not. He gave us the AC, we rolled and told him if we hit, then rolled damage. Just like we do in 3E.

We played 1E til 3E came out.


Game mechanics usually dont intrude into my immersion. Arbitrary restrictions on my actions and character creation do, however. To me, the fun of the game is making a character and playing him out, figuring out what he would do if he were real and having him act accordingly. I'm sorry if some people find this an "unfortunate" way to play.

 

[tx7321]

Merric: "Can that even be done in 1e? Hide in Shadows only works if you don't move. Certainly you can Move Silently, but if you move into LoS, even if covered with shadows?"

If it can be done in real life, then sure. Low brush to crawl behind, dark conditions (esp. if the party has messed up its night vision or infravision with light). Walk past a picture window at night with people inside and see if you get noticed? Depending on the situation I'd have the thief role MS or both MS and HIS (as a thief likely moves from fixed location to fixed location).

 

[Crimhthan_The_Great]

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.

Here is an example: see the first two posters, they and a few others were quite firm about not wanting OSRIC in the 1E forum as it was off topic i.e. homebrew. The tone later on became more strident in my view.here

I am quite aware of what "Homebrew" means and my statement is not illogical since I was merely pointing out an observed fact. That fact is that the BtB crowd attacked OSRIC and my conclusion on observing that fact (i.e. the attack) was that they must consider it "homebrew" because (even though it is BtB) it is a complete rewriting and because it is not 100% complete (due to legal issues of course). Old game reworded is considered by some as homebrew (I do not consider it homebrew, but some do and pointing that out is not illogical). Again I said:

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

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.

Apparently you missed the first sentence of my post:

DF management worries about the legal issues, the 1E forum dominant group; however, is not worried about legal issues.

I.E. I am fully aware of the reasons that the managers and mods at DF did what they did; however, my comments are in regard to the 1E BtB crowd that dominates the 1E forum.

 

[Crimhthan_The_Great]

WotC/Hasbro has forever had this lame assertion that OD&D/OAD&D would compete with their current products and dilute the market. There is zero evidence that this is the case.

So TSR never had any problems with dilution of product lines and never were able to measure any impact of having two competing D&D lines at the same time?

TSR suffered from bad management by the Blooms and their hiring of numerous non-productive relatives as is well documented in posts on dozens of websites. It did not have anything whatsoever to do with keeping OD&D, Classic D&D and AD&D in print at the same time.

Later on T$R under Loraine Williams did not have OD&D or Classic D&D in print, dropped AD&D completely and replaced it with 2nd ED AD&D. What caused their financial problems were (as is well documented on many websites around the internet) the incompetent leadership, dumping profitable systems such as OD&D, Classic D&D and AD&D, moving to 2nd ED AD&D and losing 50% of their customer base, creating too many campaign worlds that were also too story heavy, chasing away all of the old school quality writers and replacing them with mostly inferior product and losing millions in ill-conceived lawsuits.

OD&D, Classic D&D and OAD&D never competed, they complemented each other. That is the fact that is always missed. OD&D, Classic D&D and OAD&D back in print with POD would complement 3E not compete with it. This is an easily recognizable fact, to assert otherwise is quite simply either ignorant of the historical facts or deliberately dishonest. If this offends anyone then I offer my sincere apology that the truth has hurt you, but it nevertheless does not change the truth that WotC/Hasbro has forever had this lame assertion that OD&D/OAD&D would compete with their current products and dilute the market; however, there is zero evidence that this is the case.

 

[tx7321]

Crim: "I am quite aware of what "Homebrew" means and my statement is not illogical since I was merely pointing out an observed fact." Fair enough, and sorry if I came off harsh.

Rereading that thread...I can't really make much since of it myself. But it was clear P&P didn't want to put DF out. I suppose the same is true today. Anyhow, it seems OSRIC has moved to DFs general board.

 

[Crimhthan_The_Great]

Crim: "I am quite aware of what "Homebrew" means and my statement is not illogical since I was merely pointing out an observed fact." Fair enough, and sorry if I came off harsh.

Rereading that thread...I can't really make much since of it myself. But it was clear P&P didn't want to put DF out. I suppose the same is true today. Anyhow, it seems OSRIC has moved to DFs general board.

No offense taken, I just wanted to make myself clear.

Correct, P&P was not and is not, if I understand him correctly not wanting to do anything that hinders what DF and others are already doing, but wants to add opportunities for those who want to publish. And he most certainly was not wanting to put DF out in anyway.

 

[Melan]

Regarding chart-based combat, this is one of the reasons I consider Original D&D (accept no substitutes!) superior to 1st edition AD&D. In AD&D, there are multiple charts for attack rolls, meaning you must have a DM screen or the books in front of you to calculate combat. I don't like that at all - screens inhibit the casual gaming atmosphere I am shooting for. In OD&D (as well as EPT), it is elegnace and simplicity itself: all classes use the same matrix, but progress differently on it. So, for example, fighters get better at combat every 3 levels (I think), while it takes 5 for magic-users. The whole system fits on a small index card which I had laminated and could store in a wallet if I wanted to. Granted, I did away with the separate monster attacks chart for my OD&D one-offs, but two little cards are still not bad.

[off]Hi, Axe. I have been thinking it was you for a while, but your stance on immersion was a dead give-away. You also posted on RPGNet as Immortal, didn't you? [/off]

 

[Particle_Man]

Getting back to 1st ed, I seem to remember that the to hit charts did have the "20" repeat about 6 times as the AC of the opponent got better and better, presumably to give the characters a chance to hit really, really, tough to hit opponents. That disappeared in 2nd ed and didn't reappear in 3rd ed.

And didn't the character sheet for B/X D&D have a "mini-chart" that players could fill in, with a printed list of ACs and empty boxes under them in which you could write your "to hit" numbers?

 

[Hussar]

Merric: "Can that even be done in 1e? Hide in Shadows only works if you don't move. Certainly you can Move Silently, but if you move into LoS, even if covered with shadows?"

If it can be done in real life, then sure. Low brush to crawl behind, dark conditions (esp. if the party has messed up its night vision or infravision with light). Walk past a picture window at night with people inside and see if you get noticed? Depending on the situation I'd have the thief role MS or both MS and HIS (as a thief likely moves from fixed location to fixed location).

And there's the problem right there. What you decide can be done in real life and what I decide can be done in real life can be entirely different. Thus, the players are pretty much beholden to whatever the DM decides is reasonable. Having had far too many rows in game over exactly this sort of thing, I, for one, am very, very happy to see that taken out of the hands of the DM.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

And there's the problem right there. What you decide can be done in real life and what I decide can be done in real life can be entirely different. Thus, the players are pretty much beholden to whatever the DM decides is reasonable. Having had far too many rows in game over exactly this sort of thing, I, for one, am very, very happy to see that taken out of the hands of the DM.

Then OSRIC really isn't for you, I'm afraid. Disempowering the GM is pretty far from what OSRIC's about.