D&D General Steve Winters version of AD&D 1e

[darjr]

In Slaying the Dragon Ben writes about Steve Winter and he’s cut up and rebuilt books for 1st edition.

I’m fascinated about that as an artifact and what it might be like to have and run a game with.

I wonder if it still exists or if anyone here has ever seen it or heard any other details about it?

 

[Blue Orange]

How is this different from OSR rules with the serial #s filed off? You have OSR games to simulate brown box D&D, 1e, 2e, BECMI, the blue Holmes version of D&D...

 

[darjr]

How is this different from OSR rules with the serial #s filed off? You have OSR games to simulate brown box D&D, 1e, 2e, BECMI, the blue Holmes version of D&D...

Probably only in that it directly effected 2e and was by one of the creators of 2e.

They were mightily struggling with how to approach a 2e if even if they should do it. This was the spark that started the work and got us a 2e. It’s also what helped make up their mind about which way to go. A re edit only or a new version with rules changes and all.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think it was Steve Winter who did an interview about the design of 2e and said, "Of course we thought about ascending AC, but we wanted the players to be able to use their existing material with it."

So I'd guess that if he were able to, ascending AC probably showed up in his notes early on in his homebrew system.

 

[darjr]

@Blue Orange actually I’d very much like to compare this with some of the retro clones.

This just makes me want to see it more.

 

[Blue Orange]

Probably only in that it directly effected 2e and was by one of the creators of 2e.

They were mightily struggling with how to approach a 2e if even if they should do it. This was the spark that started the work and got us a 2e. It’s also what helped make up their mind about which way to go. A re edit only or a new version with rules changes and all.

So he was one of the original writers of 2e? I didn't recognize the name... we can't all be as lucky as Gygax to have a name that sounds like one of the characters you're playing...

 

[Jer]

I think it was Steve Winter who did an interview about the design of 2e and said, "Of course we thought about ascending AC, but we wanted the players to be able to use their existing material with it."

Yeah - by 1988 ascending AC was a pretty common house rule where I was at. My group was kind of surprised they went with THAC0 when they made 2e instead of going with ascending AC and providing a table or a formula to translate AC from descending to ascending given how long we'd been playing with it.