OSR New changes are afoot for OSRIC!

[Fifth Element]

WotC bought a game and slapped the name D&D on their own game rather than continue with D&D.

And Gygax took D&D and made a bunch of changes to create AD&D, all in a specific effort to prevent Arneson from receiving royalties. If you're okay with that you really don't have a leg to stand on with objecting to the 2E -> 3E transition.

 

[Umbran]

Something a WotC D&D fan would say.

Mod Note:
It would be much better, rhetorically, if you didn't dismiss the person, and instead dealt with the logic of the position.

And, as a side benefit, it'd probably not get reported and gain moderator attention.

 

[jonesymat]

OSRIC is the same way. Key difference is in Dragonslayer the rule applies to small traps too! Seems pretty small, but important distinction for me since I like my low-level Thieves to succeed in their profession. Also, it opens up the possibility of allowing for rolls despite not looking for traps.

I think AD&D assumes the characters not being that competent in the first level. They are only a little more competent than the 0-level npcs. The name of the levels attest to this. AD&D is a game where the characters grow to become competent

Oh, bonus tidbit: I'm looking at a 2e wiki and it mentions Thieves being able to attempt to find traps on a particular object a number of times equal to their level. Pretty sure that wasn't in AD&D?

I don't remember right now, but I think in AD&D 1e there is no rule about how many times you can try to find traps. But normally the roll is secret, the player wouldn't know if failed the roll

And Gygax took D&D and made a bunch of changes to create AD&D, all in a specific effort to prevent Arneson from receiving royalties. If you're okay with that you really don't have a leg to stand on with objecting to the 2E -> 3E transition.

This about Gygax trying to prevent Arneson receiving royalties is true, but AD&D it is not that different from OD&D from a game perspective. OD&D with the supplements was 80% AD&D. The original Monster Manual even uses the OD&D rules for many things, and in isolation can be a OD&D supplement. And they are compatible with very minimal conversion. This was Gygax corporate talk about AD&D being different. Later in life he did talk about the two in conjunction "OAD&D". The 2e to 3e transition was a lot more radical, and the compatibility was not there anymore. And this continued since, with every new edition not being compatible with the last.

 

[Jahydin]

Your criticisms of trap-finding and thieves are fair and I largely agree with them, but we cannot really expect to see such changes in games that are explicitly clones on B/X and AD&D.

Very true and I appreciate the efforts to preserve the old rules in a more readable format.

Your comment and @jonesymat 's made me grab my old AD&D book off the shelf and it kind of clicked what they were going for. 0D&D Theives just had disable since looking for traps with words was the norm, but when AD&D came around, I think they realized that with "treasure traps" it made more sense to use dice instead.

Feels like that distinction might have gotten lost over time and everyone was just rolling Find Traps for everything. I even think that's how the Baldur's Gate games handled it. My friends and I were certainly guilty of it playing 2e.