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<blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9623641" data-attributes="member: 7035894">I think that 1e’s deadly reputation gets really overstated. There was a tradition of very deadly tournament games, of which Tomb of Horrors is the most infamous example, but this should not be confused with normal play. To the contrary, as I explore in another thread, it was customary to have characters who superseded specific campaigns and that you played for years. Many spells in D&amp;D remain named after some of those characters. There are people on this forum who play characters from 1e to this day.I think D&amp;D was generally more game and less RP oriented back then, so it was not uncommon to create characters that you didn’t much care about and might happily use to create a memorable death, but not one of your mains.As far as trying to foil the players, my goal is to have meaningful stakes. Part of that is having antagonists who absolutely are doing everything they can to foil the PCs. Obviously I try to set the challenge at the right level so that the players are likely to win at the end…but so does Mearls! That’s just good design: set an appropriate challenge and then do your best as the antagonist. Make the players work for it.Mearls obviously isn’t advocating for you to throw an ancient dragon at a level 1 party. But play those goblins as well as you can, and trust your players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Clint_L, post: 9623641, member: 7035894"] I think that 1e’s deadly reputation gets really overstated. There was a tradition of very deadly tournament games, of which Tomb of Horrors is the most infamous example, but this should not be confused with normal play. To the contrary, as I explore in another thread, it was customary to have characters who superseded specific campaigns and that you played for years. Many spells in D&D remain named after some of those characters. There are people on this forum who play characters from 1e to this day. I think D&D was generally more game and less RP oriented back then, so it was not uncommon to create characters that you didn’t much care about and might happily use to create a memorable death, but not one of your mains. As far as trying to foil the players, my goal is to have meaningful stakes. Part of that is having antagonists who absolutely are doing everything they can to foil the PCs. Obviously I try to set the challenge at the right level so that the players are likely to win at the end…but so does Mearls! That’s just good design: set an appropriate challenge and then do your best as the antagonist. Make the players work for it. Mearls obviously isn’t advocating for you to throw an ancient dragon at a level 1 party. But play those goblins as well as you can, and trust your players. [/QUOTE]

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