SnowleopardVK
First Post
Last night my university had its annual D&D day, and I got to try something new. Or rather, old. Specifically, AD&D 1e. It was quite an experience for me.
Being mostly a Pathfinder GM with some playing experience, as well as one or two forays into 4e, this was a big change. I was one of the only two out of the seven players who went into this with any RPG experience at all (the point was to show of the game to new players, so they wanted mostly new people, and a couple that had some experience, but not with the old stuff. We played a sort of exhibition to show off the game, both to the new players and to anyone who wanted to sit around and observe, and I was selected to be one of the players.
The fellow DMing for us on the other hand was raised on the original stuff. A graduate of our uni who's been coming back once a year for over two decades to run these games for the new players (already I was thinking "okay, cool stuff").
So what did I learn from the (roughly 6 hour) experience? First and foremost that the old-school games are DANGEROUS for player characters. Of course I've heard people online say things about them like "Back in the day you didn't always survive your first dungeon", but I didn't really make much of it. Having actually experienced it now, I think I can say I have a better understanding. Of the 7 PCs who went into that dungeon, only 2 came out alive, and one did so after having had his legs chewed off by rats (I was actually the only one to get out completely in tact). The kicker? In the entire dungeon, we only actually encountered ONE real monster. And yet that many of us died.
It was... Wow. I think I can certainly say I have more of an appreciation for the old-school after that, and y'know, despite all the deaths and the fact that our in-game mission was essentially a failure, it was fun. And all five out of five of the players who were completely new to D&D when we started are now eager to continue being players of the game, as are (or so I'm told) about half a dozen of the people who observed the event. So I'd say the out-of-game reason for this event was a huge success. And it was a fun success at that.
Being mostly a Pathfinder GM with some playing experience, as well as one or two forays into 4e, this was a big change. I was one of the only two out of the seven players who went into this with any RPG experience at all (the point was to show of the game to new players, so they wanted mostly new people, and a couple that had some experience, but not with the old stuff. We played a sort of exhibition to show off the game, both to the new players and to anyone who wanted to sit around and observe, and I was selected to be one of the players.
The fellow DMing for us on the other hand was raised on the original stuff. A graduate of our uni who's been coming back once a year for over two decades to run these games for the new players (already I was thinking "okay, cool stuff").
So what did I learn from the (roughly 6 hour) experience? First and foremost that the old-school games are DANGEROUS for player characters. Of course I've heard people online say things about them like "Back in the day you didn't always survive your first dungeon", but I didn't really make much of it. Having actually experienced it now, I think I can say I have a better understanding. Of the 7 PCs who went into that dungeon, only 2 came out alive, and one did so after having had his legs chewed off by rats (I was actually the only one to get out completely in tact). The kicker? In the entire dungeon, we only actually encountered ONE real monster. And yet that many of us died.
It was... Wow. I think I can certainly say I have more of an appreciation for the old-school after that, and y'know, despite all the deaths and the fact that our in-game mission was essentially a failure, it was fun. And all five out of five of the players who were completely new to D&D when we started are now eager to continue being players of the game, as are (or so I'm told) about half a dozen of the people who observed the event. So I'd say the out-of-game reason for this event was a huge success. And it was a fun success at that.
Welcome to the club.
