Real tale of Old School feel?

[Grazzt]

edit: C'mon, X2 even has a save-game like feature where a crimson cloud allows the PCs to rest - old schoolers seem to find this cool, yet the charge of videogameyness is usually levelled by them at 3e. Ironic.

Ah- but resting and respawning from your last save point are two different things.

 

[Numion]

Ah- but resting and respawning from your last save point are two different things.

It's a NetHack savegame amber bubble, oh Demon Prince

(For those not knowing, the save game in NetHack is deleted if you die, so it's just for continuing game after a pause, not for re-tries)

 

[Schmoe]

edit: C'mon, X2 even has a save-game like feature where a crimson cloud allows the PCs to rest - old schoolers seem to find this cool,

Really? I haven't personally read or heard anyone saying this was cool. I thought it was lame. But just because it was in an old module doesn't mean that old schoolers think it was cool, and I think attempting to say that old schoolers champion every little flaw in all the old material is a little disingenuous.

 

[Numion]

Really? I haven't personally read or heard anyone saying this was cool. I thought it was lame. But just because it was in an old module doesn't mean that old schoolers think it was cool, and I think attempting to say that old schoolers champion every little flaw in all the old material is a little disingenuous.

Okay, I'll concede that. But I'll say it is bad design (in addition to being videogamey), which the old-school fans probably won't admit. Or will they? Speak up.

 

[Schmoe]

Okay, I'll concede that. But I'll say it is bad design (in addition to being videogamey), which the old-school fans probably won't admit. Or will they? Speak up.

Well, I'll be the first old-school fan to stand up and say it was dumb. I still had a lot of fun with the module, though, save-bubble and goofy puzzle-squares notwithstanding.

 

[Numion]

Well, I'll be the first old-school fan to stand up and say it was dumb. I still had a lot of fun with the module, though, save-bubble and goofy puzzle-squares notwithstanding.

I admit that I've had my share of fun in some pretty absurd situations and locales in D&D, which is a testament to the games versatility, really. I'm just concerned about a seeming double standard. Old modules get away with a lot crap that 3E is accused of inventing, like the videogamey elements, crazy creature combos (are the templated oddities in 3e any worse than the stuff in X2? Just a different method..) and even the high amounts of magical gear (even though someone calculated that old modules are pretty monty haulish by modern standards). And non-sensical modern dungeons usually rate low in the reviews section.

This can also be seen in the threads about suspension of disbelief that have been going on recently. The smallest things can tick of players making them unable to cope, but then desert of desolation and X2 however rank highest in the favorite module polls. Both are pretty weak in the suspension of disbelief scale. It is likely though that it's two different crowds that have troubles in suspension of disbelief, and who like those two modules. (Which is another proof of D&D's versatily, because it caters to many different styles of play.)

 

[jasper]

I don't remember the save bubble. I may have just thrown it out as being part of dm. Part of chart of X2 I found is it smacked cheaters hard. You know the types who always make their saving throw. Yes I had a couple of those and it was fun to see lie and pass a save and get no effect and then lie and say they failed and get a bad effect.
However X2 did suffer from the video game feel of what happen in one room had little to do with what happen next door.
But remember X2 had how many years on experience on writing modules vs today experience of modules.
Remember Quaq Keep was thought to be great when came out. Compare that to the latest Drizzit novel

 

[Numion]

But remember X2 had how many years on experience on writing modules vs today experience of modules.

I thought that was one of the points in this thread: X2 is not a very well designed module. Does it matter if tis was state-of-the-art wayyy back? I mean, a yugo would've been an excellent car in .. um .. 1920's, but when it was introduced, not.

 

[Quasqueton]

I would play in that campaign, Quasqueton. I would have fun. But hey, don't let me get in the way of your new Edition Wars thread, there aren't enough of them anyway.

I have never said any of the old modules were unfun, or that anyone who had fun with them was wrong for it.

What I *have* said, though, was that some of the old modules were very badly designed.

What flabbergasted me in the Desert of Desolation thread was that so many people said that module was well *designed*, or one of the greatest in *design*. In the case of that module, I think the overall plot and concept is cool, but the execution (room by room) was atrocious. The *design* is bad.

Does this mean I hate earlier editions of D&D? Or that I hate the old modules? No, not at all. I played AD&D1 for 15 years, even when AD&D2 was the current game. I bought and read and mined for ideas many of the old adventures. I still use many of their ideas and concepts, and sometimes even encounters from those old adventures.

My favorite module of all time (for current edition or older) is The Temple of Elemental Evil. A very close second is Keep on the Borderlands. Does my love for them mean they are well designed? No. I beleive ToEE is decently designed (which is all I ask for). A decent DM and Players can have a good fun time with it without the DM having to cover for and make up excuses for it, or the Players having to overlook or just blindly accept too many stupid things. I beleive KotB is similarly decently designed, but it has no plot or connecting element to it. Plus it is very poorly laid out/formatted.

I have officially stated that I think the worst module of the "old days" is The Forest Oracle. The overall "plot" is stupid, the individual encounters are stupid, and the resolution to the adventure is stupid. Interestingly, no one seems to want to take issue with my statements on that adventure -- either I'm completely right, and everyone agrees, or this adventure is no one's treasured memory for them to jump up and defend it. Palace of the Silver Princess is similarly stupid in plot design. Both of these may be someone's treasured memory of older D&D. In Search of the Unknown was the very first D&D adventure I experienced. I fell in love with the game through that adventure. But reading it in full, it also is badly designed.

But I give leeway for some of those older adventures because they were written without any precedents or examples to go by. They were designed for novice players to just run around in, kill things, take their stuff, and occassionally fall into traps. They weren't *expected* to make sense. But then there are some of the older adventures that *were* well designed:
The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
All That Glitters
The Sentinel
and some others. [And yes, I see the pattern above.]

I have only read a handful of the adventures for the current edition (the 8 adventure path mods, Return to ToEE, and the first Rappan Athuk), and I think each of them are at least decently designed. But they were also written with plenty of game experience behind them, lots of game design philosophy to support them, and possibly for a more mature audience (the D&D gamer demographic has gotten older).

Now, if I found a really badly designed adventure for D&D3, and I said it was bad, would all the D&D3 fanboys here jump on me as a D&D3 hater?

This has nothing to do with edition wars. Bad design is bad design.

Desert of Desolation seemed to be intended as a serious adventure but, for me, that mood/feel is spoiled by bad design where the "rubber meets the road".

Castle Amber seemed to be intended as a silly trip down the rabbit hole, not intended to be taken seriously. But it is still poorly designed.

You can say that a good DM and good Players can cover for or overlook bad design in an adventure, but that just acknowledges the adventure has bad design. A well designed adventure shouldn't require a particularly good DM or a good set of Players. A well designed adventure shouldn't require anyone to cover for or overlook a ton of missing or non-sensical elements.

Quasqueton

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Okay, I'll concede that. But I'll say it is bad design (in addition to being videogamey), which the old-school fans probably won't admit. Or will they? Speak up.

You forget that, as with any kind of entertainment, calling it "bad design" or a "feature" is always a matter of taste. And D&D is primarily a kind of entertainment. So what's there to admit to? That your taste differs from that of others? Since when is that news?

Looking at the module in question, I see an adventure based around a family of (for an X-level adventure) incredibly powerful magic-users who were cursed by the most powerful of them to live in a state of timelessness. They are bored out of their skull, have the most bizarre sense of humor, are easily enraged, and don't exactly like each other...and they crave entertainment. They actually killed the head of their family, who in turn cursed them and the whole castle. He also is not compeltely dead yet, so he wants to be free, and needs some adventurers for that. He prefrably needs them alive, so each time they hunker down to rest and refresh, he sends them magical aid, and gives them hints in order to make them free him.

Yes, there is a lot of ad-ibbing necessary to run the encounters with each member of the family...or not, depending on how much you want to roleplay it. Some vents may look whacky, or silly...but that's what happens when a group of high-level magic-users with a bizarre sense of humor get bored to death. And the fights are there to keep the hack-level up with the bizarro-level. After all, a lot of people play D&D to have a few good fights with strange monsters.

It's funny that "adventure design" is such a hotly debated topic nowadays. If there was one formula to design the "perfect" adventure, and everybody would try to adhere to it...D&D would become as boring as hell. The fact that it IS so versatile, and able to entertain the most diverse kinds of players, is its strength, and the fact that so many players had fun with adventures like Desert of Desolation or Castle Amber shows that interesting storylines, roleplaying and whacky dungeon crawls don't have to be polar opposites.

By the way, I'd much prefer it if people qualified their declaration of taste a little better as their own opinion. It's a bit annoying when somebody comes up and states "This [insert here] sucks dead weasels" with the voice of non-existant authority. We're discussing taste here, people, not facts. And no, I never smoked crack, but I had a blast with this one.