Raven Crowking
First Post
mearls said:
QFT
I've never played AD&D1
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
QFT
Quasqueton
First Post
Quoted with fix. (QWF?)
Quasqueton
Raven Crowking
First Post
Depends, Quasqueton. Some people actually enjoy making houserules. However, to each his own pudding.
RC
RC
Quasqueton
First Post
I enjoy generally tinkering with game rules as much as the next person – I do at least some mental tinkering even when I’m not the DM/GM. But I don’t consider it part of the fun of running a campaign. When I run a campaign, I’d prefer to run the game straight, as is. Only if something is actually broken will I incorporate a houserule to fix it. The less time I have to devote to creating houserules, the more time I have for creating adventures, NPCs, monsters, magic items, etc.
Basically, I don't consider it a good thing that a game system is so weak or broken that it "let's" me create houserules to strengthen or fix it. (I'm talking game systems in general, not a particular one.)
Quasqueton
Last edited:
DaveyJones
Explorer
you mentioned the rules being discussed here as for conventions. so why not pick a convention from the time and look at the number of participants listed for an event?Quasqueton said:
seems to me the number of people in a game session shouldn't be a contentious subject either if you choose the parameters and state them.
arbitrary stating of personal anecdotes is obviously contentious. my group doesn't equal gary's or yours so we have nothing to discuss on that matter.
If you'd like to run a convention module, I'd advise the first half of A1 (Slave Pits of the Undercity), as it has the most linear structure and ease for DMing.
I think the research for #players playing D&D found the average closer to 5, but for design of 3e, the base was chosen to be 4 players.
My AD&D groups back in the day had 3-6 players. I think that was true of most groups. However, hirelings and henchmen meant there were 6-10 characters on many expeditions.
When I ran White Plume Mountain (see report), I used a modified version of oAD&D initiative; I paid attention to weapon lengths when charging, spell casting times, etc. I didn't use weapon vs. armour types. It didn't take more time than my 3e combats. (Or significantly less, either).
Cheers!
I think the research for #players playing D&D found the average closer to 5, but for design of 3e, the base was chosen to be 4 players.
My AD&D groups back in the day had 3-6 players. I think that was true of most groups. However, hirelings and henchmen meant there were 6-10 characters on many expeditions.
When I ran White Plume Mountain (see report), I used a modified version of oAD&D initiative; I paid attention to weapon lengths when charging, spell casting times, etc. I didn't use weapon vs. armour types. It didn't take more time than my 3e combats. (Or significantly less, either).
Cheers!
Gentlegamer
Adventurer
The OP hates A1 . . .MerricB said:
TFoster: "Back in the 80s, every RPGA tournament I ever played in had 6 players per table (except the AD&D Open at GenCon, which had 9 players per table)"
Just out of curiosity, were players allowed to bring their own PCs in tournaments (assuming they were proper leve), or did they have to use pre-generated ones. Also, what level of role play took place (did PCs talk to NPCs for instance) or was this more to the point.
Just out of curiosity, were players allowed to bring their own PCs in tournaments (assuming they were proper leve), or did they have to use pre-generated ones. Also, what level of role play took place (did PCs talk to NPCs for instance) or was this more to the point.
Glyfair
Explorer
Quasqueton said:
Actually research conducted in the late 90s indicated that 4 was the norm. I do believe that number was larger in the late 70s and early 80s. It certainly was for convention D&D. In my experience 8 was the norm, with 6 the minimum at conventions (my experience was the East Coast Origins, and AtlanticCon).
Still, we can't be sure because no one did the research until WotC took over D&D.
tx7321 said:
Don't know about the RPGA, but usually not. I have heard stories about "bring your own character" events, but they usually ended in disaster. On the other hand, Runequest came up with an alternate world theory to account for the fact that so many people would show up at the same table with the same artifacts from the published adventures (the Wind Sword, Balastor's Axe).
It varied widely. It probably had slightly less roleplay in D&D games than some other game systems, but there were still heavy roleplay oriented games.
At one Origins I was thrust into the GMs role at the last minute for a Melanda: Land of Mystery game when someone cancelled at the last minute. That time slot had 2-3 tables (among several slots during the weekend). My players finished with about 15 minutes left in the 4 hour slot. I went to the other game and the group hadn't left the tavern where the adventure started.
Last edited:
All of the RPGA tournaments in the era when I was active (mid-late 80s) had pre-gen characters. Some non-RPGA events might have been BYOC, but I didn't usually play in those. RPGA events of this era were very roleplay-centric -- the "plots" were completely linear and usually beside-the-point anyway, tactics and problem-solving were afterthoughts at best; it was all about play-acting the pregen characters. At the end of the session the players would vote for the best player (which was pretty much synonymous with "hammiest actor") and the top 2 or 3 vote-getters would advance to the next round. This is actually almost exactly the opposite of what I like in D&D and in retrospect it's amazing that I played in as many of these tournaments as I did. Quintessential examples of tournament modules of this era include C6: Official RPGA Tournament Handbook, WG9: Gargoyle, WG11: Puppets, and (last but not least) the immortal "Terrible Trouble at Tragidore" (of 2E DM Screen fame/infamy).tx7321 said:
The AD&D Open at GenCon was a very different beast and by the late 80s felt like a relic of a previous era, not only because it had 9 players per table instead of 6 but also because it was judged by team instead of individually and placed a much higher premium on combat tactics and problem-solving (score was calculated based on how quickly the team completed the scenario and how many characters survived, with bonus points (and penalties) for particular actions, and the teams that scored highest moving on to the next round). There was very little roleplay involved -- it was all about "solving the encounter" and moving on to the next one as quickly as possible. See the A series modules for the quintessential example of an AD&D Open scenario (the A series was the AD&D Open for 1980). This style of play was much more in line with my prefered play-style, but, alas, because I was always a "wild-card" (i.e. I didn't have 8 fellow-players there with me to form a team) and had a hard time working as an effective team with a bunch of strangers I actually tended to have less success here than in the standard "play-acting" tournaments.
In the 2E era the RPGA introduced the Living City campaign, in which players brought their own characters (which had to be generated using specific guidelines and could only be played in official Living City tournaments) but I was already distancing myself from the RPGA (and "official D&D" as a whole) by this point, and only played in one or two of these, so I can't speak much to them.
