D&D 1E On Variability, House Rules, Research, and the 1e/5e Difference

[Shiroiken]

1e houserules.

Interestingly, one of the driving purposes of AD&D was to codify the very loose rules of OD&D. Houserules were the order of the day, because much of it wasn't fun as is. I usually ran AD&D characters through BECMI adventures, mostly because my Waldenbooks usually carried those rather than the AD&D ones.

B. Application to 5e. And this is what truly matters. The amount of variability in 5e is, IMO, so much less. While we can have lively debates (and we do!) about the application of, say, cover and hiding and surprise, in overall terms, the application of basic rules is so much more standardized in 5e it's not even close. Which is why I have to wonder about the requests for, inter alia, a PHB 2 or increasing numbers of advanced options for 5e. There is an advantage to having people speak the same language, play the same game, understand each other. Speaking solely for myself, as someone who played 1e for decades and only migrated to 5e, I can remember looking at the sheer number of options in 3e (and to a lesser extent, 4e) and thinking, "Thanks, but no thanks." The simplicity and ease of getting into 5e has been a starting point of its popularity, and I think that's a lesson worth remembering. Maybe we don't have rules in 5e to get to 117th level, and that will always be something that we have to look for on the DM's Guild ... but that's not a bad thing! There are, and will always be, the prior rulesets for people who love them for what they are; 5e appears to be doing fairly well with what it is. At least, based on my observations and the limited information WoTC/Hasbro is giving us.

I'm not sure how much of this I can agree with. While the basic chassis of 5E gives us a shared language, the framework is designed for customization with homebrew and 3PP. I think this is going to make the game vary just as much between tables as in 1E. My group has 4 DMs, and each of us has our own set of houserules and customization that only apply for our game. I can't even image how varied it would be to play at a convention or AL.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, something that came up recently was a discussion about "1e" and what a typical campaign was like.

There really was no 'typical campaign,' because gaming back in the early 80s took place in comparatively (as you point out, no internet! - barely even BBSs for the hard-core techies of the day) isolated groups and regional communities. The D&D the 'old timers' played at the Dragon's Den in Santa Clara sure sounded different from the D&D we 'new kids' played at The Game Reserve in San Jose just a few years later.

1e/1.5. Without putting too fine a point on it, Unearthed Arcana was hot, flaming garbage

It should have stayed 'earthed.' ;P

An easier example for most people to grok is the Armor Class Adjustments Table. IMO, it was Gygax's wargamey routes trying really, really hard to make "fetch" happen. While it made sense in theory (a flail is good against plate armor, while a jo stick is not), it suffered from several issues- first, the lack of clear explanation as to what constitutes armor class, second, the fiddliness of the rules, and finally, the fact that the vast majority of the time, unlike a wargame, you would be fighting monsters with natural AC, and it was unclear what, if any, modifier should be used. So IME almost all tables did away with this (except [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] !).

Heh. I was virtually alone in liking that system back in the day. One DM I got to play with fairly often would use it (and everyone else would groan). When I started DMing, I intentionally reduced the impact with a rule that magic weapons ignored negative adjustments, and magic armor ignored positive ones, so once you were wearing magic armor & using a magic weapon, you could just ignore 'em. After 2e, I homebrewed my own, simpler, weapon-vs-armor type rules, but the players were still hot to get magic that'd ignore them.

B. Application to 5e. And this is what truly matters. The amount of variability in 5e is, IMO, so much less.... The simplicity and ease of getting into 5e has been a starting point of its popularity, and I think that's a lesson worth remembering.

I have to disagree with the latter, but agree with the former (sorta).
5e may feel simple to folks who remember 1e or 2e or even folks who were just playing 3e/PF, because, well, those versions had incorporated years of messy supplements, while 5e is much more sedate that way, but, mainly, because 5e is so evocative of those earlier editions that knowing them makes if feel familiar, and familiarity is experienced as simplicity. For the newb, 5e is more approachable than 1e's Ponderous Gygaxian Prose, but that's about it.
But, the experience of 5e does seem to be a lot more consistent, which does also help in adoption. Little about 5e makes it less prone to table-to-table variability than 1e was. It's got the DIY attitude, the open invitations to homebrew in the form of rules that, though voluminous, leave plenty of stuff vague, and the reticence to 'fix' or 'tune' things officially. What makes 5e so much more consistent /is/ the community, the WPN/AL provide continuity of play experience in organized play settings (far more than tournaments ever did, before the RPGA), and the internet creates hobbyist echo chambers that build mass consensus on what D&D is, how it works, what it's all about - and even what it 'always' has been (wrong as that last one is: there was no consensus back in the day).
So the amount of variability is much less.

 

[S'mon]

Ok, that link is insane and those players had way too much time on their hands or were way too generous with XP, etc., though I heard stories of those types of teenage gaming groups that handed out XP like candy on Halloween. But in all my years of playing 1E/2E, no party ever went past the low teens for level, and that was in campaigns that lasted years and were played weekly.

We played daily for years at school. Initially just at lunchtimes, but I recall in our last year there were a lot of breaks between lessons when we could play for hours a day in the 6th form centre. Also no minis, small groups or solo, so play was very very fast by modern standards. A 35 minute lunch session might have several fights.

XP - used straight XP for gold, went over to 2e monster XP. I think the main thing causing rapid advancement was that at very high levels the XP needed to advance stayed flat while gold and monster XP awards continued to increase.

The funny thing is that this was very very far from Monty Haul style, I was a very vicious GM and perma-killed several demigod-level PCs who had played up for years. The listed PC Thrin was just the lone survivor who was also played the most. I'm still on the tough side today, but I was definitely more Gygaxian-adversarial back then.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

*shrug*

1e is Awesome. 5e is Awesome'ish. I can see the desire to try and 'merge' the two. Not sure how well it would work as far as trying to 'codify' what is used and how. I mean, personally, I use 1e/HM4 (that's Hackmaster 4th Edition...the one based on 1e/2e/BECMI) stuff with 5e all the time. Just used HM4 stuff in Sundays game for random encounters and some overland travel stuff. Will be using it this coming Sunday I'm sure (if we don't jump back into our BECMI game), as the PC's ended the session at The Black Dragon Inn, in Greyhawk City, trying to get rooms, food and drink (Hackmaster4 has the coolest rules for the whole 'bar scene' stuff...drinking rules in particular! ). If I can't easily convert something into 5e...I just use the 1e/HM4 rules as they are; so asking for a "Save Vs. Petrification" is as easy as just using the 5e characters '3rd level Sorcerer' as a 3rd level Magic-User, looking on my HM4 GM Screen to find the number, and having the player roll. Don't even need the 5e rules for that. Is it a perfect conversion? Nope. And it doesn't have to be. All it has to do is be fun, reasonable, and consistent. Get all three of those and you're golden!

IMNSHO, too many game designs nowadays favour "single-system resolutions" and that, while easy to use/memorise, make systems that feel pretty bland and same'y over time. With 1e there was just enough consistency to make running it easy, but just enough variation in the subsystems to make it all interesting! YMMV.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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[pming]

Hiya!

Well, there is always a balance between "if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" v. "I have a separate table and resolution system that is mechanically distinct for every possible thing that could occur in the game!"

I happen to dislike some of the simplification of 5e- and I am on record as to my peeves. That said, I think that we also view 1e's disparate resolution mechanics with rose-colored glasses. Sure, I can, and will make a case for the attack and saving throw matrices. I will go to battle defending disparate class abilities that are not spell-based or spell equivalents.

I think you and I mostly agree with a lot of things in regards to 1e...we both still play it, for example.

But ... c'mon. Grappling? Psionics? That's just for starters. There were .... so ... very ... many subsystems that had to be discarded or changed or homebrewed in order for them to work. And I think long-term players (like us) tend to forget that, because we already did the work. But that took trial and error.

So, yeah, 1e was awesome, but let's not forget that it took a lot of work to make it playable.

Grappling...and Punching...rules in the DMG were one of the ones I remember reading when I first got my DMG and thinking "What the heck are these rules?!? WHY do it all this way?". That said, I did have one friend later (about 15 years later) who, when he DM'ed 1e, absolutely loved those rules and we used them. At least I didn't have to try and figure them out!

Psionics I found a nice addition and easy to use/understand. Still use them to this day...although they are "canon" in my games, I give the player the option of rolling for them or not. I'd say that it's pretty much a 50/50 split if the player wants to roll or not for the character. Psionics are great...if you have the stats for them and you roll well. If you BARELY have Psionics, you are almost as good as dead the first time you meet something with psionics. One house rule I did use for them was reducing the "10 psionic attack sequences per round" thing because it takes about as long as a regular attack, so a PC with psionics immediately jumps to taking 10 times the actual play-time at the table for every 1 time a normal player gets to go.

At any rate, yes, I do agree that some of the rules are...extra-quirky to the point of being barely usable in an actual game session (unarmed grapple/punch, for example). I also agree that those who "grew up with" those rules like you and I remember it being "easy" because, well, we learned it on our own and that was the only option. But at the same time I disagree that so many rules had to be discarded or changed/homebrewed for them to work. They may not be pretty, but they did (for the most part) work; it's just that the mindset of a 1e DM (and player) was that "If it doesn't do it for you, change it so it does". I had one little ongoing debate with one of my friends (Dave; Yen Wang Yeh rest his soul) about how "good" (me) or "bad" (him) the 1e system was. I claimed that because it had so many 'modular subsystems' it was a GOOD system...because it let if not encouraged the DM to make it his/her own. He was on the other side, saying that it was a BAD system...because a DM almost always had to modify it to make it his/her own. Different sides of the same coin.



Viva la 1e AD&D!

PS: I'm one of those 'wierd' 1e DM's that actually liked a lot of the Unearthed Arcana stuff, and I LOVE both the Dungeoneers and the Wilderness survival guides! So...

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[lowkey13]

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[pming]

Hiya!

Oh, I was right with you and agreeing up until the postscript ....

You like a lot of the Unearthed Arcana stuff?????

You loved both the DSG and WSG?????

That's like saying, "Dude, Paladins are awesome, and can only be awesomer if they are gnomes." NEVER!


(IMO, UA was undoubtedly the low-point for 1e and, unfortunately, Gygax- foreshadowing his post-TSR issues, and WSG and DSG, along with WG7, pretty much was the end of my desire to purchase TSR output).

Ok, ok...I know I'll never be able to douse the unquenchable hatred-fueled hell-fire that burns in your soul against Paladins and Gnomes (n.b., Paladin is tied with MU's for my favourite class...just saying... ), so I won't bother. However, in regards to WSG/DSG/UA...

UA had a lot of interesting stuff. Some was way over the top (Method V stat rolling, the Grey Dwarf, and the Deep Gnome, for example, but Drow weren't too bad, due to the fact they were semi-'known' and hated by pretty much everyone in existence). I tweeked a few things (like making two types of Paladins; PHB Paladins and Paladin-Cavaliers...but so far I've only seen TWO played since UA has come out; stat requirements and other strictures are just REALLY REALLY harsh), but overall we used a lot of UA, most in fact. The update to Druids and all that had a HUGE impact on my Greyhawk campaign and any Greyhawk campaign/games I run to this day.

The WSG and DSG...I use for 1e and I use for many other fantasy games (if it's some kind of "D&D", I'm using them 99% of the time). The info presented in the books made me think of things I hadn't really put a lot of thought into. Like air quality and temperature. Or different types of watercraft that PC's are far more likely to build/find/use. The info on detection of odor's, and chances to climb, or how small an area a particular PC can squeeze into, etc. The weather effects on missile weapons, movement, climbing and all that. Chances of hunting or fishing. Swimming, drowning, quicksand, rockslides, beasts of burden, and all the overall "info" about terrain and 'the wilderness'. How can you NOT love this stuff?

Then again, I'm a DM that doesn't "build to the PC's", so all the info in these books I use to help bring the world to life and glue it all together with a consistency that allows my players to make decent guesses on, well, a huge range of things. I have found that using the GUIDELINES presented in all three of those books, UA, DSG, WSG, I've been able to maintain a consistent 'style' of DM'ing over the decades. Probably one reason why when I get a new player, they tend to stick around for a decade or three. My players know that if they are going into the mountains, they know what to bring and what not to bring...in stead of just taking "whatever gives the best Survival bonus", because I run an Old Skool style game where if a player just blurts out "I make a camp for the night" and that's it...well...it could be very bad for that PC. I will take the absolute BASE decisions made from the perspective of a Commoner. So players don't say such simple things; they actually describe what and how they are setting up camp and what precautions they are taking, etc. Then, using the info in the WSG/DSG, I can figure out how effective their 'camp' is at keeping them safe, healthy and alive. "I make a camp for the night" is basically a Player giving me carte-blanche to play the part of Unforgiving Mother Nature. Mother Nature don't give a shpoop about your intentions or feelings...it only cares that you decided to sleep in your metal armour, on the ground, in a depression, with no fire because you didn't want to "attract attention". Ok, PC, welcome to the "hypothermia" rules, population, YOU. Oh? That's unfair of me as DM? Huh...well maybe NEXT TIME you will actually think about what YOU would do if you were your PC and in that situation, and then take two minutes of your time telling me how you are going to avoid not dieing. There's more to the game than just Combat and making a Skill check!

...er...sorry... got a bit heated there... I figure if I put effort into thinking about the world and making it feel "real" to the player, then the players should at least have the decency to put a bit of effort into thinking about the world from the perspective of their PC as a person in the fantasy world rather than just a few numbers on a character sheet. Thankfully, my players do!

PS: Take your loathing of Paladins/Gnomes and just sub-in 'WG7' and you know how I feel about that...that...abomination!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[lowkey13]

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