My Group had an Epiphany!

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Like most people in Germany i started gaming with The Dark Eye. I´ve never met anyone on a messageboard or in real life who has ever considered of going back to oTDE. I know people that still play 3rd edition, but you cannot compare that to going back like the OP, that game was already full of crunch.

Lots of people are replaying the old adventures, but the original system is, well, dead. Interesting thing, this difference.

I am not really familiar with TDEs histories, but IIRC, it was created after other RPGs and was based on experiences with them. I think Das Schwarze Auge always had an elaborate skill system, for example. The older D&D editions seem far "simpler" in that regard, and they contain the original ideas TDE.

TDE was always pretty "simulationist" - and it seemed to always do this at the expense of playability. I don't see it ever playing fast and loose, so there is nothing to be gained by going back to an earlier edition.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I am not really familiar with TDEs histories, but IIRC, it was created after other RPGs and was based on experiences with them. I think Das Schwarze Auge always had an elaborate skill system, for example. The older D&D editions seem far "simpler" in that regard, and they contain the original ideas TDE.

TDE was always pretty "simulationist" - and it seemed to always do this at the expense of playability. I don't see it ever playing fast and loose, so there is nothing to be gained by going back to an earlier edition.

If that were true, it would explain everything. However, 1e TDE has no skills, a tight 60-page rulebook (including monsters) and was basically a roll-under-attribute system. That´s why i find this so interesting. The potential is there - not everybody is happy with 4e TDE. Nevertheless, no oTDE lovers that i´ve ever met, and not retro-movement or "write a TDE 1st or 2nd" initiative.

It would be pretty easy to use the super-light 1e rules and play using the elaborate background world.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

If you are a fan of TDE, you should check out: Radon Labs Game Development

 

[Delta]

I'm sold. I've got 2 close friends, now in their 40's who played 3E for a while (as their first RPG) and were like, "meh". Then I introduced them both independently to old-school D&D and they were like, "Wow! Now this is what D&D should be like!"

Personally, now I can't do without (a) Feats for fighters, (b) comprehensive core mechanic, (c) mix-and-match race & class, and (d) Open Game Licensing, so my Diminutive d20 rules (link below) are scratching my itch fantastically well right now.

 

[Delta]

I find the latter editions to suffer from the "salt problem". It's as if a chef said to himself "Salt tastes good. If I put in 10 times as much salt, this food will taste 10 times as good." Now that's not meant to offend anybody... I'm just saying that they're not to my taste, and that is because they draw selectively upon the older elements and ramp them up until they take the forefront. I just don't find the resulting concoction to my liking.

Crowning example from movies: Ghostbusters 1 had some "slime" in it. Venkman got some on his hand and wiped it off on library vards. Later a ghost puked some up on him. It was funny.

Ghostbusters 2 saw that... and now there's rivers of slime. Oceans of slime. The entire NYC sewer system is full of slime. People are dunked completely in slime pits. The Ghostbusters start carrying giant tanks of slime on their back and shooting that as weapon. And it was dumb as all hell.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Every once in a while something will happen in a game that feels just like that first time I played D&D, irregardless of the system being used at the time.

I agree with everything in your post except this. Irregardless is not a word. It is a vicious doppleganger that infiltrates sentences in order to destroy them.

 

[Darrell]

Welcome (back) to the Old School!

Thanks (to everyone who replied)!

Old School gaming is not about nostalgia. It's about the fact that the game is fun, it works and it still holds up.

Old School gaming may not be about nostalgia (though I'd argue the point to an extent), but my purchase of the Basic Rulebook was; and so was the group's initial decision to run a game (well, for most of us, at any rate).

I will definitely agree, however, that we latched on to a thread of fun that many of us haven't experienced in a while. The simpler rules, faster play, and general 'uncomplicatedness' really appealed to us; but had it not been for the nostalgia aspect, we might not have found that experience.

Regards,
Darrell

 

[mmadsen]

I know that I usually prefer a very heavy, complicated, simulationist set of rules.

I prefer a very light, simple, simulationist set of rules -- which is why I don't run an OD&D game, but a streamlined d20 game with an OD&D ethos.

 

[El Mahdi]

I agree with everything in your post except this. Irregardless is not a word. It is a vicious doppleganger that infiltrates sentences in order to destroy them.

Fine, Regardless then. (Yeah, I know. It's a bad habit of mine. At least when I use it on a Word Doc, spellcheck will fix it for me.)

 

[Mercule]

Does anyone have any suggestions for someone who (like me) is really bothered by this? Does anyone know if someone has done a rewrite of the classes to balance them across 20/36 levels?

The point of the "old school" balance wasn't all about equal level = equal power. There was quite a bit that came from play style or alternate balancing.

My group never saw wizards as being particularly overpowered. Most power came from the end of a sword or from being a smart thief. On the other hand, I never found 1st level AD&D wizards to be underpowered because they often stayed close to town and prepared spells based on known tasks.

Old school wasn't supposed to keep all characters balanced in all situations -- including combat. Combat was just one more area where a character may or may not excel. Really, it was about finding where your choice of class and concept did excel and running with it. A thief would never consider going into "fair" melee combat because that was absurd. But, the right thought process could result in an insanely effective thief soloing against an entire cult.

As much as I like 4e, this is one area where I have concerns (and disliked 3e). I don't necessarily want all character classes to be equally effective in combat situations. I want rogues to shine more than others when stealth and subtlety is important, fighters to shine when it's a straight-up battlefield, and wizards when there is some fantastic problem or knowledge-based task.

Having said that, I just played a 3e wizard with a full battery of knowledge skills. It lasted one adventure. It was incredibly cool to be able to bring my full player knowledge to bear, including being able to rattle off all the monster weaknesses and identifying magic items from memory. After a couple of sessions, though, I'd given all my knowledge on the situation and settled into the resource management role. Even at 6th level, with a 22 int, I didn't feel like I had enough spells to actually last the day (and I refuse to be the source of the 15 minute adventuring day).

What I really want is a happy medium where different classes unquestionably shine at different times and in different ways, but no one is ever completely useless.