Next year, I'm back to running AD&D

[Mournblade94]

There will be tweaks. I don't believe it is possible to run AD&D RAW... just the initiative system requires house rules. That said...

...no monks or paladins (out of character for a Viking-type campaign)
...no Unearthed Arcana. The basics will be just from the PHB.
...no psionics
...possibly no training

I'll let you know more about the rules as I get closer to running it.

Cheers!

Wait viking campaign with no MONKS!!! out of CHARACTER!!! WHo are the viking s going to raid if there are no monks???

Just kidding really. Monks are the perfect VICTIMS for a viking campaign!

 

[Lanefan]

Leveling in 1e is pretty close to 3e if you actually give xp for gp and magic items.

Which is exactly why I don't do it - 3e advancement is WAY too fast for what I want.

If you dig into some old threads here, there were some comparisons done using the classic 1e modules that found the advance rates were pretty similar. It's not 100% ironclad - the biggest variable being there's no way of knowing what proportion of the treasure in a module any given party will find - but it's interesting stuff anyway.

Lanefan

 

[ragboy]

I want gods to be important in D&D. Indeed, the AD&D game I'll run will be very involved with the gods of the barbarians, but the D&Dg/L&L approach leaves me cold.

Take a look at the DCC rpg beta (Dungeon Crawl Classics). Gods (and other powerful otherwordly beings) are VERY relevant to the cleric and the wizard.

They took a very interesting approach. I've found that clerics and wizards are the prime movers to assembling and organizing adventuring parties. Clerics at the behest of their gods and wizards because they are either trying to acquire more powerful patrons or trying to repay the patrons that they've already gotten power from.

Anyway, not to derail the 1e discussion -- If our group doesn't use DCC as a default, I'm unbolting a few things from it and bolting them onto 1e and/or C&C.

 

[Herobizkit]

How about getting re-used to using a chart to determine if PC's hit or miss?
Or using different die types for different skills/abilities?
And let's not forget that higher is better, except where it's not!

I tried to go back to a 2e game, never again.

Clerics don't even have a 2nd level healing spell!

 

[Votan]

Hidden within the admittedly disorganized mass of 1e rules are some very elegant bits of crunch that later editions could really learn from. Clerics turning undead, for example: roll d20 against a chart, if you succeed roll d12 to see how many you get. Simple, huh? Resurrection survival % chance based on Constitution - simple, but it makes death something to be feared as there's that small chance you're truly done. Teleport risk factor - the small chance you'll end up in solid rock makes the whole teleport-commuting issue rather moot. There's lots more.

I like the capping the maximum bonus hit points from constitution to +2 for non-fighters as well as capping the number of hit dice. Makes it much harder for clerics and wizards to be competing with Fighters for hit points.

I also found the implementation of polymorph much easier to use and much less oddly powerful.

Secondary skills, rolled randomly, were a pretty decent background enhancer. Occasionally there was a mis-match, though.

Agreed -- a lot of cool stuff.

 

[ssampier]

"I think I love you. So what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm not sure of, A love there is no cure for." David Cassidy

LOL I adore AD&D, if nothing else for the pure nostalgia factor. A couple of factors keep me from running an AD&D game, namely:

1) Lack of good adventuring skills/talents. AD&D 2e had proficiencies, but not quite the same.
2) Level limits on demi-humans. It sort of makes sense so the elves and dwarves won't rule the world.
3) One round is one minute long (at least it was in 2e). It amazing me how much we gnash teeth over 6 sec combats in 3e.

Runner-up: I never understood unarmed fighting in 2e. It might be simpler than I'm making it out to be.

I'm curious how you fix those things or gloss over them. Either way it's all cool as long as you and the players are having fun.

 

[Riley]

LOL I adore AD&D, if nothing else for the pure nostalgia factor. A couple of factors keep me from running an AD&D game, namely:

1) Lack of good adventuring skills/talents. AD&D 2e had proficiencies, but not quite the same.
2) Level limits on demi-humans. It sort of makes sense so the elves and dwarves won't rule the world.
3) One round is one minute long (at least it was in 2e). It amazing me how much we gnash teeth over 6 sec combats in 3e.

Runner-up: I never understood unarmed fighting in 2e. It might be simpler than I'm making it out to be.

I'm curious how you fix those things or gloss over them. Either way it's all cool as long as you and the players are having fun.

My suggestions:
1) Tack on the 4e skills system. Give everyone 4 trained skills of their choice.
2) Ignore the level limits and racial restrictions.
3) Declare rounds to be 10 seconds long.

Voila!

 

[Lanefan]

How about getting re-used to [...] using different die types for different skills/abilities?

I'm fine with this - hell, I've got all these different dice in the bag, might as well put 'em to use.

Clerics don't even have a 2nd level healing spell!

I threw one in for my latest campaign; for the next one I'll probably take it out again.

I also found the implementation of polymorph much easier to use and much less oddly powerful.

I've been banging this drum for years...nice to find someone else sees it too!

1) Lack of good adventuring skills/talents. AD&D 2e had proficiencies, but not quite the same.
2) Level limits on demi-humans. It sort of makes sense so the elves and dwarves won't rule the world.
3) One round is one minute long (at least it was in 2e). It amazing me how much we gnash teeth over 6 sec combats in 3e.

I'm curious how you fix those things or gloss over them.

1. Never bothered me much - anything comes up, we wing it based on common sense.
2. I've taken most of these off but there's still some races can't be some classes at all e.g. no Dwarven arcane casters. Hasn't made much difference, but note I've also dialed back the various racial benefits a bit both in crunch and fluff terms, so playing a Human is still a viable choice and in some areas is the best choice.
3. We shortened rounds to 30 seconds a long time ago, works just fine. Get much shorter than that and some things start to fall apart, particularly in how spellcasting interacts with things that should otherwise take some time e.g. ships moving past each other or, for that matter, any sort of movement at all. If spells never entered the picture I'd be happy to shorten melee rounds to 6 seconds (we use d6 initiative so I'd stay with something divisible by 6), but I don't want spells to be that rapid-fire nor do I want spells only castable every several melee rounds. So, long rounds remain.

Lanefan

 

[Wik]

3. We shortened rounds to 30 seconds a long time ago, works just fine. Get much shorter than that and some things start to fall apart, particularly in how spellcasting interacts with things that should otherwise take some time e.g. ships moving past each other or, for that matter, any sort of movement at all. If spells never entered the picture I'd be happy to shorten melee rounds to 6 seconds (we use d6 initiative so I'd stay with something divisible by 6), but I don't want spells to be that rapid-fire nor do I want spells only castable every several melee rounds. So, long rounds remain.

Way back when I ran 2e, one of the main house rules we had in effect was shortening the combat round; sometimes, we shortened it to 30 seconds, although I think most of the time, it was at around 15 seconds long.

Since we switched to 3e (and later, 4e, and now, switching back to 3e), we've actually lengthened the combat round. In the upcoming Dark Sun pathfinder campaign I'll be running, combat rounds will be set at maybe 10 to 15 seconds or so. For the same reasons you've mentioned - rapid fire spells kind of bugs me, especially when you tack on the effects of defiling magic.

 

[MerricB]

Honestly, the "length" of a combat round hardly turns up in my games - we just don't think about it. I'd have to say that the removal of the "turn" adversely impacted my caring about time in 3e/4e.

I'm not worried about the lack of a skill system. If I absolutely feel the need for one, I'll borrow 4e's, but one of the problems with any such system is they give reasons for saying "you can't" and "you fail" which can be amazingly annoying.

(Of course, I don't know how long I'll survive with the amazingly low thief % to find/remove traps before getting frustrated, but first I need someone to play a thief!)

One of the fascinating things about AD&D's experience point structure is that even without demi-human limits, once multiclassed demihuman characters hit "name" level, they begin to fall behind in level gain significantly. It's a level or two behind whilst XP totals double each level... at the top end it's one level for every two or three of the humans. So, does AD&D need level limits? Well, it depends how long the campaign will go.

Cheers!