D&D 1E Mearls on AD&D 1E

[AmerginLiath]

I wonder to what degree the experience was due to 1st Edition and what degree it was due to Luke Gygax running 1st Edition. It’s often debated how tight or loose the rules of the game should be, but a tighter ruleset (such as more modern versions) is going to necessarily have a closer range of outcomes in running the system. For forty years, there’s been the debate over how gamer’s primary exposure to convention modules has colored their perception of how 1st Edition “should” be run (versus how we increasingly hear from the original Lake Geneva groups over how the original game was run). To have one of EGG’s sons (an original player) run a game is likely going to be a different experience than running a commercial module in one’s basement parsing playstyle from the DMG and Dragon Magazine (note how the modern game can be impacted by our interface on boards like this; see how surprised many were to hear the “humans without feats” reports, for example). Mearls is at the very center of the modern d20 universe, so he’s going to be involved in a different D&D world than Luke Gygax (even though it shares a common genealogy); even as someone who has played 1st Edition before, Mearls previous ‘basement’ experiences with the ruleset are going to be different than this EGG-alumni experience.

 

[Bawylie]

He’s relating a transcendent experience. You can try to pick apart and dissect the components of what makes that experience transcendental, but you’ll lose the essence.

Outside that experience, I can recognize some of the stuff that contributed - there’s a huge dose of legacy, of archetype, of legend - but I wouldn’t hang my hat on any of that alone as THE thing. Least of all a lack of familiarity with the rules.

 

[TerraDave]

Its that combination of the very tangible--do we open this door or that, do we take the stairs, who is going to open the chest? with the very strange and mythic being experienced by the player through the thin mask of the character.

When it works it really works.

But I think it can also work in 5E.

 

[iserith]

1e didn't use THAC0. If he'd had to cope with THAC0, the whole experience would have been torpedoed.

Substitute whatever 1e-appropriate lame mechanic you want there and the point stands.

Seriously (not really, less facetiously), if Luke had been running Dogs in the Vineyard, Mike would definitely have had a completely different experience.

That would likely have more to do in my view with the kind of story associated with that game than the rules themselves. I've never played it, but know the basic premise. D&D is at its heart centered around a particularly ancient story with deep psychological significance. I'd have to do some analysis of DitV to see what that's centered on. It would also be a game less relevant to the space in which it was played and with whom which could impact the transcendent experience.

 

[Tony Vargas]

see how surprised many were to hear the “humans without feats” reports, for example

That was clarified: humans are the most popular race (not news) and most characters didn't have feats - those were two separate data points. Up to 49% of PC could have been variant humans with feats, and the rest evenly divided among the other races, all without feats, and both statistics would have remained true, for an extreme example.

even as someone who has played 1st Edition before, Mearls previous ‘basement’ experiences with the ruleset are going to be different than this EGG-alumni experience.

Didn't Gygax run his game in a basement?

Not that that changes anything. Just mildly amusing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Substitute whatever 1e-appropriate lame mechanic you want there ...

We could be here all day...

 

[Gansk]

When my group played 1E, we played by the book as much as humanly possible. Gygax's rules were sometimes a challenge to interpret, but it was like meandering down a maze. If you review the initiative rules, you'll know what I mean. Everytime we rolled a d6 for initiative, I was the designated expert to determine who would go first, because I was the only one who spent the most time going down the rabbit hole. "Is he casting a spell? What is the speed factor of his weapon?" I think unarmed combat was almost as bad, but we generally avoided it because it was a sub-optimal tactic.

Then we would go to conventions where the DM's just winged it, and it wasn't the same. I'm sure the story was fine, it just bothered us that they didn't put in the effort to run the game the way it could be run. So yes, the literal 1e rules created a kind of grittiness that made us afraid for our characters, even if we were just fighting orcs and ogres. God forbid we take on an evil spellcaster, the tension was palpable.

Nostalgia is a factor, but creating challenging rules was just another part of Gygax's genius. It further engrossed us in the game.

 

[Mistwell]

Hey, there's edge cases for everything. But, if he played with a bunch of guys who were tripping the whole nostalgia deal, it could as well have been a nostalgia-contact high. ;P

I know my posting style runs pretty cranky-old-man, but I was actually expressing a positive impression of what Mearls had to say. Thanks for challenging me on it. I'll try to live up to the expectation of unalloyed negativity, next time.

More old man and less cranky please!

 

[Zardnaar]

It's like people don't understand how you can have fun with older D&D lol.

 

[Shasarak]

Can't wait to read all the responses elaborating on why Mearles is completely wrong, wrong, wrong and more wrong.

Did he actually make any statements that could be wrong? I just read him talking about his experience.