Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5467906" data-attributes="member: 22779">I'm not even all that convinced that adversarial existed as much as people claim, back in the day.&nbsp; I mean, look at the following:1.&nbsp; Dragonlance came out in 1984, so, it's not like reducing the lethality of the game is something new.2.&nbsp; A 1st level fighter in Basic D&amp;D could afford plate mail and shield most of the time.&nbsp; That started him off with an AC of 2 (same went for the cleric, the dwarf and the elf).&nbsp; The baddies he was likely to face at that level had a THAC0 (ok, it wasn't called that at the time, but that's what it was) of 19 or 20 and no attack bonuses.&nbsp; That mean the average orc was only hitting you about 15% of the time and only did about 3 points of damage to your D10 hit points.&nbsp; 1st level characters were far more durable than people give credit for.3.&nbsp; Holding up S1 as an example of great play is ballocks.&nbsp; This is a meat grinder dungeon filled with probably the worst examples of DM's Aha Gotcha moments that actively go out of their way to challenge the players by changing the rules of the game.&nbsp; Playing S1 Tomb of Horrors straight up is unplayable, not something to be proud of.4.&nbsp; My World's Largest Dungeon campaign, using 3e rules and wide open chargen choices (if you owned the book, you could play it with almost no exceptions) claimed a PC every 3 sessions on average for 80 sessions.&nbsp; I reject the notion that 3e game design throws softballs.&nbsp; And note, this dungeon was made entirely from the 3.5 SRD, no splats.So, I'm going to throw the Nostalgia Flag at this one and penalize you ten yards.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 5467906, member: 22779"] I'm not even all that convinced that adversarial existed as much as people claim, back in the day. I mean, look at the following: 1. Dragonlance came out in 1984, so, it's not like reducing the lethality of the game is something new. 2. A 1st level fighter in Basic D&D could afford plate mail and shield most of the time. That started him off with an AC of 2 (same went for the cleric, the dwarf and the elf). The baddies he was likely to face at that level had a THAC0 (ok, it wasn't called that at the time, but that's what it was) of 19 or 20 and no attack bonuses. That mean the average orc was only hitting you about 15% of the time and only did about 3 points of damage to your D10 hit points. 1st level characters were far more durable than people give credit for. 3. Holding up S1 as an example of great play is ballocks. This is a meat grinder dungeon filled with probably the worst examples of DM's Aha Gotcha moments that actively go out of their way to challenge the players by changing the rules of the game. Playing S1 Tomb of Horrors straight up is unplayable, not something to be proud of. 4. My World's Largest Dungeon campaign, using 3e rules and wide open chargen choices (if you owned the book, you could play it with almost no exceptions) claimed a PC every 3 sessions on average for 80 sessions. I reject the notion that 3e game design throws softballs. And note, this dungeon was made entirely from the 3.5 SRD, no splats. So, I'm going to throw the Nostalgia Flag at this one and penalize you ten yards. [/QUOTE]

Verification