D&D 1E Seriously contemplating an attempt at a retro AD&D

[Man in the Funny Hat]

For what it's worth...

I don't remember anything in the 1e DMG about expectations that characters would retire around name level. As you mention, he noted in the strategic review days that his group had PCs who had made it up to 14th level after a couple of years of gaming.

And one of the reasons for that - to MY understanding, and I could be wrong - was that at name/title level (if not before) players would still retire/semi-retire their characters and start playing another one, or at the very least that was largely the expectation of Gygax. At the time Gygax wrote that in Strategic Review the game hadn't been in existence long enough for characters of even the longest-running-ever games to advance any higher through regular play, not that he expected that to significantly change. Just because clerics and m/u's have AD&D spell tables that run as high as 29th doesn't mean he really expected campaigns to last long enough for PC's to reach those levels, or if the games themselves did last longer than he anticipated that PC's would routinely survive. Remember also that he was still coming from a perspective of the original game, which was a much more brutal gotcha-oriented dungeon exploration game, rather than a truly roleplaying-oriented game that simply happened to feature a lot of dungeoneering. Death was going to weed out PC's and prevent them from really long-term advancement quite efficiently. All part of the reason for giving PC's in AD&D those retirement-oriented perq's at name/title level in AD&D.

The point I do remember Gygax making was that demihumans were specifically limited to make the world humanocentric, so that the high level PCs who challenged demons and demigods would be mostly human adventurers.

Which I have long insisted is an inaccurate conclusion to draw. Gygax talks in the DMG about humanocentric games in the section talking about monsters as PC's. Humans were the intended sun that all others revolve around, yes, but in that same section he reiterates that the adventuring environment was oriented for humans AND demi-humans - as opposed to monsters. He assumed that most players would nonetheless be playing human PC's because they would be the most relatable to the player's actual reality and... he was simply wrong. It was one of those things he hadn't thought of. Players indeed wanted to play demi-humans as much or possibly even more than humans, even with or despite the limitations given to them. That set up conflicts for a long time to come between the written rules following Gygax's (and others) expectations and what an increasing number players actually wanted from the game. A large number of people chafed at those demi-human level limits, and still did even after UA expanded them. Again - the expectation of the AD&D rules as Gygax wrote them was that players would just naturally want to play HUMANS. Actual player reaction was that the rules limiting demi-human PC's and the lame excuses for those rules really were getting in the way of how they wanted to play, which wasn't what the rules expected. DM's widely ignored those level limits (and still do when playing AD&D). It was the game designers who needed to get with the program but couldn't/wouldn't get up to speed, until TSR folded, WotC stepped in and finally said, "F all that noise".

People played D&D in hugely different ways. Some made high level characters for one shot modules like the 1e G and D series, some of the first modules ever for D&D.

Originally tournament modules IIRC. G1 was originally set as being for characters 8+ level. The Against the Giants compilation was for 8th-12th level PC's. The Queen of the Spiders compilation of G, D, and Q was still only 8th-14th. NONE of that could really be said for what we NOW consider "high-level" characters. If you claim that they were for "high level" characters at that time then "high-level" definitely means pretty close to name/title level. I believe part of the reason they seem set so low now is that being tournament modules they anticipated a more PC's in the mix than a more modern assumption of only 4 or 5, and possibly henchmen and hirelings being included. Maybe it's that in the older pre-AD&D mindset that still prevailed, they just weren't expected to be likely to survive.

It wasn't just that individual DM's ran their games differently from each other - but they were running their games notably different from how the rules and the game's designers really anticipated. The AD&D rules DIDN'T change to meet the new ways that people were playing, other than VERY grudgingly and minimally.

2e like 1e had mostly unlimited levels for humans in most classes and limited levels for demihumans in most levels. The big 2e change was where the limits were, in 1e most demihuman thieves could go unlimited and everything else was fairly limited, in 2e most limits went up, some were unlimited, but most demihumans had limits (usually 15th level) for the thief class.

Yep, IIRC 2E limits expanded even further on what UA had permitted for 1E, and still people quite frequently bent to hell or ignored THOSE expanded limits too, and for the same reasons - what players really wanted was still not being given to them by D&D game designers: that demi-human PC's would stop being made deliberately and notably subordinate to human PC's. They DIDN'T want rules-enforced humanocentrism at the expense of demi-human advancement.

 

[rabindranath72]

Yep, IIRC 2E limits expanded even further on what UA had permitted for 1E, and still people quite frequently bent to hell or ignored THOSE expanded limits too, and for the same reasons - what players really wanted was still not being given to them by D&D game designers: that demi-human PC's would stop being made deliberately and notably subordinate to human PC's. They DIDN'T want rules-enforced humanocentrism at the expense of demi-human advancement.

2e's optional level limit rules worked quite well, and I used them consistently; after all, the demihumans did get a lot of extra abilities, and they must be worth "something". Paying 2x XP up to the maximum racial level (possibly extended via high attributes), and 3x after the maximum is an effective way of accounting for demihuman abilities and level limits at the same time. I used the rule in 1e as well, and it didn't break the game.

 

[CapnZapp]

This is a brand new idea and nobody has ever attempted something similar.

 

[amethal]

You might find Anthony Huso's blog useful, since he went back to AD&D and has a lot of advice about how to play it.

Blue Bard

He also claims to be playing AD&D "by the book" which most people think is impossible.