AD&D 1E Redesigned and Rebalanced Thief for 1e AD&D

[Celebrim]

I typed up a long reply and then thought, this is stupid. There is no point in arguing about this. It's dumb to argue. If you guys want to make up ways you think people played back then...go ahead. If you want to try to state that the groups I played with were playing it differently than how we actually played it...Imagine away. Be my guest. In the end, how we played isn't really pertinent to what the conversation was, which was how to rebalance the thief.

I'm always fascinated to hear about how different tables played the game, but what triggered the conversation is your claim that that way you were playing as the game was intended to be played. That claim is a claim of objective fact, and you have the misfortune of making it to two people who are historians of the game. I've read my Gary Fine and my Jon Peterson, and I myself go back to 1981 (starting with the red box) and had a cousin (sadly no longer with us) who went back to at least '76. I've often talked with Rob Kuntz and Sandy Peterson about their recollections.

With respect, you've explained nothing about how your ideas for fixing the thief actually worked. Instead, you've thread crapped about how thieves never were even necessary, because back in the day people could just reliably pick pockets or hear noise by describing how they did it. You've claimed that this procedure of play was the one intended by the game and everyone else was just messing things up by even adding percentile chances of success.

You still roll occasionally on the table (but only if the thief is challenged in the use of their skill in some way, for example trying to hear something through a thick door and such, unchallenged is an automatic success) for your thief skills, but not as much and not as often.

OK.

I'm beginning to see it now; you have no idea how anyone else plays.

I agree that anyone - even someone who isn't a thief - can hear noise through a thin door, or if something raucous is happening on the other side. You don't need especial skill for that. No one needs to roll for that. You just tell the party, "You can hear the sounds of laughter and muffled voices through the door in the left wall." The whole point of a skill test, regardless of what edition you are playing, is that the thing is doubtful. Do you really think over the 40 years I've been playing I've forced players to make Hear Noice or Listen at Doors checks when the door is thin and/or the noise is loud? In case it isn't obvious, every one of these thief skill tests is for something that is HARD to do, not something that is easy. For things that are easy, yes there is no roll, but that is itself not a system. It answers no questions. Or in more 3e terms, if the DC is 0, then the noise is automatically heard by anyone with average hearing ability. 3e saves word count by not explaining that the DC to walk across a smooth floor is -5, because even toddlers can generally do it unless they try to run.

This is what I call the "Kindergartner Rule". If you can imagine an 5-year-old attempting to do it, then any PC ought to be allowed to try it. If you can imagine a 5-year-old succeeding in it, and it's not something to do with fitting into a tiny space, then any PC certainly could do it.

You aren't adding anything to discussion with your grognardery. My beard is as gray as yours. I can grumble just as loudly. Enough of the "These kids these days". You are only 5 or 10 years older than me.

So I get it. But this doesn't really address anything. Yes, anyone can hide behind the sofa. This is the chance you hide in shadows. Yes, anyone can hear a reasonably loud noise through a thin door. I get it.

But a pick pocket check is pretty much always challenged - even if the person is sleeping. A move silently check is pretty much always challenged. Climbing a sheer surface is pretty much always challenged. If climbing is so simple that it anyone can do it, then yes the thief certainly can too. For example, yes, a ladder gives you like a +100% chance on climb checks. The thief (and probably everyone else) doesn't need to check to climb a ladder. Maybe you check for a particularly clumsy fighter wearing plate and a great helm during a wind storm. But those easy cases aren't particularly interesting to document. It's like the DC of walking over a smooth floor. No need to check if you can climb a ladder in normal circumstances.

This is why I said earlier that I both understand you and don't understand you. Because yes, I get that you don't always need to roll, but certainly for a typical dungeon lock or door you are intended to. The game explicitly forbids retrying until you get it right. The roll assumes you made every effort. Certainly, for a typical dungeon wall you are intended to make a climb check. If it's somewhere between shear and a ladder, maybe you note that.

And sure, it might be easier than normal to pick the pocket of a sleeping person, but it's not uncontested. The trouble with your "system" is that it is no system. It gives me nothing to go on ahead of time. Let's say that since the person is asleep I give a +60% chance to move silently and pick pockets. Is that enough that the ranger can do it? If I don't have percentile checks, is that enough that the thief can do it? You seem to think that I'm against "Mother, may I?" as a resolution system because I'm an abused player. No, I'm a DM lifer. I'm against it, because I don't like being put in that position of just deciding whether I want something doubtful to work. There is no drama in that. There is no neutrality in that.

PS: That said, limiting hearing noise to only being able to listening at doors is a little odd of an interpretation. I would think that's not that fun, especially when you want to try to hear noise elsewhere...but you do you.

No one has made that interpretation.

In OD&D that was one idea (more like...a thought if you will) that really existed and DM's fiat was far more powerful than I see many portray it today.

I'm not sure how many things you can manage to get completely backwards in one post. We are quite aware just how powerful and how dependent the game was on DM fiat back in the day. We aren't minimizing that. Indeed, much of my point is that as I grew older I became less and less satisfied as a GM with handling so much of the game through just fiat. I became greatly dissatisfied with the procedures of play that were described in the game rules, the incoherence of the rules, and the fact that so much the required codification was codified badly, and that so much of the game required inventing rules on the fly. My classic example of this is that the complete lack of any rules for swimming despite reams of detail on it, resulted in the flooding chamber room in module C1 "The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan" having to detail for that one encounter an entire fiddly rules system to determine if someone could swim which was as fiddly as it was unrealistic and incomplete. It's not just the fiat I object to; but also what you call the "tournament rules". You had to fiat because the "tournament rules" were bad. And this was by no means unusual. Lacking any sort of coherent system, every single encounter in published modules more complex than "orc and pie" required its own rules statement that largely could not reference any standard ruling. So every trap worked differently. Every skill test was unique. And every hazard and terrain had to be individually described with its own rules system.

 

[Celebrim]

@GreyLord

Let me try to be concise.

It's my contention that any lock which is so simple that the thief (from 1st level) can automatically do it if they work at it long enough, is also so simple that any reasonably intelligent and dexterous person also ought to be able to do it if they work at it long enough. Or, at the least, if it is so simple that the thief can automatically do it, then at least any reasonably dexterous and intelligent person with some lock picks ought to have a chance of doing it as well.

Likewise, any picking of pockets that is so simple that the thief can automatically do it (from 1st level) say picking the pocket of someone who is passed out drunk, is also so simple that any reasonably intelligent and dexterous person ought to also be able to do it. And likewise, if it is the case that the thief can automatically pick the pockets of a soundly sleeping victim, then any reasonably dexterous and unencumbered person ought to at least have a chance to do so as well.

Likewise, if the door is thin, then person who isn't stone deaf ought to have a good chance of hearing through it without even needing to roll. The "listen at doors" and "near noise" check presumes that the door is thick and that those on the other side are quiet. We aren't rolling to hear loud snoring. We're rolling to hear breathing through a 4" plank.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'm at times giving descriptions of processes of play that preexisted D&D's actual publication. This is a pretty narrow window and it involves a very small number of tables.

I'm allowing for the possibility that Greylord was playing at a table where at least one member (presumably the DM) remembered what would eventually be published as D&D in its pre-publication form, and that he's the one who gave Greylord the impression that Gygaxian D&D as published in 1974 had missed the intention.

Thus, there is a period in the game's pre-history prior to Gygax regularizing the rules where spells weren't fire and forget - what we call Vancian. But yes, if you came from a table where everyone at that table learned of the game through Gygax's publication of it - and that's greater 99.99% of players, even in the 1970s, the idea that the intended sort of play was different than what the actual rules of the game stated would be a bit silly.

My recollection is that Dave's system involved spell formulas, limited by how much of the ingredients the M-U had available, such as "super berries". Craig Van Grasstek's Rules to the Game of Dungeon (one of a family of closely-related games since sometimes nicknamed "Minneapolis Dungeon"), which is a fascinating second/third-hand offshoot of Dave's games, and which Jon Peterson shared on his blog back in 2014, preserves some of this concept. Some basic spells can be bought at the store, but most are found as treasures in dungeon rooms and are functionally one-shot consumable items. Axe balls, spear balls, sunlight balls, slave balls, healing balls, tangling balls, gorgon gorers, snake smashers, etc.

I know that in Chainmail Wizards had no limit to how many fire balls or lightning bolts they could cast, but the text as I read it is a little ambiguous on how their limit on other spells works.

Just from reading the text it's not clear to me whether that's how many total spell attempts they can make per game, or how many of the preceding sixteen listed spells they KNOW and could attempt however many times they want.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Lord knows, I have found myself in the situation where I'm a half dozen posts into an internet argument and can't find a way to back down (and I don't even have my ego tied up in these forums, or elfgames in general). Still, it always surprises me when otherwise reasonable people (and we've seen them be reasonable) end up in this state. Especially when there is an almost always useable offramp: 'Let me clarify, ...' All our posts are rushed and truncated (by necessity). If you didn't successfully express what you wanted to, or even said something that by the direct text isn't wholly correct, it is wholly reasonable to offer clarification.

Greylord, how you see this thread having gone down is not what others see. This whole tempest in a teapot is a dumpster fire of your own creation that did not need to happen. People are not making up ways they think people played back then. People certainly are not telling you that the groups you played with played differently than they did (literally everyone you haven't steered off the conversation have repeatedly stated that they do not speak for your own personal experience, and even that they appreciate your individual perspective). People have challenged you on the statements about verifiable qualities (what was printed in rulebooks and other documents), and what the developer intents were (verifiable through interviews and correspondences with those people and those who knew them directly, something we do not know of you having any claim to). Nothing more, nothing less. Extrapolating that outwards to people 'plugging there ears' to your lived experience (and to having challenged that lived experience) is counterfactual to what is posted on this thread and entirely on you.

So please (and the rest of this is just my suggestion), stop digging. Take a breath, say 'that did not go to plan,' and -- if you decide to come back to the thread (and there is no reason that you should not) -- come back ready to say 'Let me clarify...' instead of tripling down. It is okay to restate what you intended to state all along. Listen (well, read) others, and do not put words in their mouths (either in your interpretation of what they say to you or your responses to them). I'd also suggest not making assumptions about how others play today (some of your comments about 5e are not supported by the ruleset and, if treated on commentary about the culture of play of others, come off not unlike Bloodtide's 'kids these days just want a win button' schtick in reverse).

You have valuable insight to contribute, and there's no reason why you can't do so and everyone gets a win out of this.

I know that in Chainmail Wizards had no limit to how many fire balls or lightning bolts they could cast, but the text as I read it is a little ambiguous on how their limit on other spells works.

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Just from reading the text it's not clear to me whether that's how many total spell attempts they can make per game, or how many of the preceding sixteen listed spells they KNOW and could attempt however many times they want.

My Chainmail is 3rd ed., and does not update in any way. I think the natural language would say that these are spells known, not a casting limit. It certainly would make sense from a unit point value perspective. Wizards cost a lot of points to field, and need a lot of protection (not just because they otherwise are vulnerable and expensive, but because of the above 'stationary and undisturbed by attack' clause). On some level, though, it might not matter -- several of their abilities (become invisible and remain so until they attack, see in darkness, affect friendly and enemy morale as do Super Heroes, as well as both fireballs and lightning bolts*) aren't part of the spell part of their loadout. So in a typical game, a wizard unit might not have enough turns not spent fireballing, wandering around invisible, bolstering troops, or maneuvering into place to actually use more than 2-3 spells.
*"they throw deadly missiles, and Wizards cast terrible spells" -- two separate clauses, and invisibility, fireball, and lightning bolt aren't on the spell list. Strange, I know.