Surviving low-level old school D&D

[Remathilis]

Ok, I'll be the pink elephant in the room.

I cheated. A lot.

1.) I allowed alternate char-gen (4d6 as soon as 2e), and was pretty liberal about re-rolls. Most the PCs in my game had good stats (a few were weaker, and "unfairly ubers" took a lot of grief).

2.) I allowed max hp at 1st level. Most Pcs could re-roll 1s or 2s on HD rolls.

3.) I allowed Max Gold at 1st level. (Most warriors could afford chain armor)

4.) I didn't use large hordes of monsters (typically 4-6 in a decent encounter) or a lot of random encounters (a lot. I did use them.)

5.) I gave out XP for quest completion, "role-playing" a situation, and acting in role (clerics evangelizing, wizards learning new stuff, etc)

6.) I used a lot of additional rules (kits, etc)

7.) I wasn't shy about "good" treasure (bracers of armor, +1 gear, elf-cloaks, rings of protection, scrolls and wands, etc)

8.) When all else fails, I'd "roll" low on the dice. (typically on damage rolls)

Sure, I saw deaths. Even good stats (which raised things like thief %s and cleric bonus spells) and optional rules didn't stop deaths. But my group was very RP/story driven, and the idea of having "Bob VII the fighter" being the guy who survived to 3rd level didn't appeal to us.

To this day, I'm not a giant fan of the "disposable hero" syndrome. It feels more "gamist" than any "daily martial power" or "Your 5th level, you can now fight gnolls" encounter.

 

[The Ghost]

What was your experience with old-school low levels? Can you believe a tale of novice PCs surviving on their first adventure (without “help”)?

Yes, I still have the very first character I made for First Edition - Malcolm. He survived until level nine at which point we left for college and stopped playing. I do not think that my Dungeon Master was soft with us - he let the dice fall where they may. I do think, though, that our idea of what was fun and interesting may not be typical of the average gaming group.

Our very first "adventure" involved a knightly tournament in which my character served as a squire to another knight. He was forced to compete when his master disappeared. He won a small amount of gold (which equaled experience in First Edition ) and went on a quest to find his master.

In four years of playing I entered a grand total of one dungeon; fought one dragon, zero goblins, orcs, et cetera; acquired one magic item; and became a baron. Is this typical? Probably not. But it is how we played and, thus, how my character survived.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Our very first "adventure" involved a knightly tournament in which my character served as a squire to another knight. In four years of playing I entered a grand total of one dungeon.

Pfft. I had a character that was WAY wussier than that.

 

[Remathilis]

Ah, fond memories.

4 or 5 characters go into the dungeon or bandit area, fight one very small group of orcs or goblins and then retreat. Not because the wizard is out of spells, but because

1) All spell casters have cast their spells
2) The Ranger is down to 2 hit points
3) The fighter is out
4) The thief...well it does not really matter the condition of the thief

You know, after reading this, I now know why the "fondly remembered" PCs are rarely clerics, thieves or fighters...

OK. First, my party would be listening at the door. If we heard them, we'd try to go in guns blazing and hope for surprise or at least initiative. If we failed, we retreat to a corner and make them fight around it, or slam the door and spike it closed. (Of course, we use the same tactics in 3.5e as in AD&D on this stuff.)

Well, assuming we're talking pre-3e rolls, most PCs could only hear noise on a 1 in 6 chance (that's 15%?) and the thief had an 18-20%.

PCs: We listen at the door.
DM rolls: You hear nothing.
PCs: Damn. Lets leave for the day and try again tomorrow.

Talk about your 15-min workdays!

The monk or thief was going first, and using 10' pole, everywhere. Slow, but effective. The MU is NEVER, EVER, in front or in back. The approved marching order is: point-man, killer meatshield, secondary meatshield, MU, cleric, tertiary meatshield. Protect the MU . . . if you can get an MU who survives, the whole party is rocking. (Again, we go similar marching orders in 3.5e, but we have dispensed with the 10' pole -- why pole when you can just roll?)

Still, it doesn't stop the missed traps, or the ones that require more than the few pounds of pressure a pole creates. (Poles are not an exact science).

Everyone stands outside the room, while the thief smashes the chest with an axe. If there's a poison gas trap this time, oh well, get a new thief. (Or, in 3.5e, have another PC start taking Rogue levels.)

Wow. No I KNOW why no one played thieves! The best role a thief could play in a group was to hang out with the wizard, shoot a shortbow, and soak up XP until he was 6th level!

This is good advice for anyone, but especially true for magic-users. I loved-- LOVED-- playing a low-level wizard. Because their survival tips really just basically dove-tailed what any intelligent fighter should have done as well... but you never got called on it.

And before you know it, you're the most powerful character in the party.

You know, I don't lament the days of "the magic-user and his disposable entourage" being the typical D&D party.

 

[The Ghost]

Pfft. I had a character that was WAY wussier than that.

Wussy? Perhaps in the way that Galahad and Percival are wussy compared to Conan. Which is more entertaining? That is matter of personal taste. I prefer the former.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Are war dogs the same as guard dogs? I could only find guard and hunting dogs in the 1e PHB.

 

[merelycompetent]

For us it was pretty straight forward:

Learn or die. Have fun learning, and have fun dying.

I went from Basic D&D to Expert, to AD&D, then onwards. The groups I played with houseruled the heck out of the game. Everyone in the area figured out pretty early on that rolling a bunch of average stats was no fun, so point systems, 4d6 + reroll 1's + take highest 3 + assign as you like, and many other variants became the norm. We were teenage geeks and nerds. We wanted to play Conan-, Gandalf-, Chu'Chulain-, Fafhrd-, Grey Mouser-types. Not Wingnut the wussy fighter. As one DM put it: You can keep on rolling masses of 3d6, writing down the stats, and having the character suicide until you get some fun stats... or you can use this point-buy system I've been thinking about.

I figure I had somewhere between 1 in 4 to 1 in 3 of my characters die before 5th level.

Mostly, we learned not to do suicidally stupid things (i.e., cause and effect). We watched how others gamed and adapted their tricks and tactics. We sent out sneaky thieves to scout ahead for pit traps that would gack the MU. We guarded our rears. We ran away A LOT!! We laughed when the 14th level MU thought we were his entourage, and let a bunch of demons get in to melee range with him for a round. No more put-downs after that resurrection. The whole group cheered when my cleric, Tain, was knighted and became known as Sir Tain the Faithfully Sure. Except the DM - he was banging his head on the table because he suddenly realized I'd spent the last year of real time setting up that pun. One of my first characters, Douglas (yeah, guess where I stole the name from), was a thief and survived to legendary status - eventually becoming the Guildmaster of Thieves in Greyhawk City, faking his own death to retire, then dual-classing to a couple of other classes (long story) and becoming a walking illustration of 1E dual-classing rules follies. That was before he became a demigod vampire. Sort of. He certainly made use of the hear noise percentages at every opportunity, and saved many fellow adventurers from unnecessary damage. Yeah, sure, sometimes he didn't make the roll. But the sure way to fail is to not try... or make too much noise griping about failed attempts. Heck, there was that one time he failed to hear the ogre charging the door in Keep on the Borderlands! The MU offered to help, since the door was obviously untrapped (the thief was listening at it and nothing bad happened). The MU almost bought it then and there when the ogre came crashing through the door and tromped the thief and MU beneath it. Together, we almost made a squished multi-classed human MU/Thief. The fighter's player laughed so hard he sprayed pizza on the playroom wall. We spent most of the night trying to clean it off before my parents found out.

Looking back on it, yeah, I ran into some lousy DMs and lousy players. But they were few and far between. I tend to remember the high points more than the low ones, because there were a LOT of high points. I didn't stick with groups or individuals that I didn't get along with. I also developed ways to weed out people I knew I wouldn't get along with from groups I DMed for. And I would quietly leave groups who had players (or DMs) that I wasn't a good match with.

We survived by making houserules so the game was more fun, learning basic tactics and strategy, and reminding ourselves that even utter dimwit characters (Int or Wis 3) either learn from experience or die. A wise gamer I met pointed out to a young and too-by-the-book young DM (yours truly) that when the PCs run out of hit points, you can't torture them any more. So don't make them run out of hit points too soon. Pace yourself. It's not meant to be a horror house for the DM's entertainment. But if the hit points don't drop, the players will lose interest.

That's how our characters survived beyond 1st level: We learned, worked with the DM, and ran away a lot.

 

[Doug McCrae]

In four years of playing I entered a grand total of one dungeon; fought one dragon, zero goblins, orcs, et cetera; acquired one magic item; and became a baron. Is this typical? Probably not. But it is how we played and, thus, how my character survived.

That's truly amazing. So D&D encourages players never to go down dungeons. I do feel that's where Tomb of Horrors-style dungeons + gamism can lead you - players win the game by never going down dungeons, or at least never really interacting with them, which is basically the same thing. Tomb of Horrors was first completed by a party that used orc slaves to trigger all the traps.

 

[The Ghost]

That's truly amazing. So D&D encourages players never to go down dungeons. I do feel that's where Tomb of Horrors-style dungeons + gamism can lead you - players win the game by never going down dungeons, or at least never really interacting with them, which is basically the same thing. Tomb of Horrors was first completed by a party that used orc slaves to trigger all the traps.

I would not say that. I think in my case my group emphasized a more political, more intrigue-based game; almost to the point where combat was unnecessary. (Since gold gave experience in First Edition there was never a lack of "encounters" to pursue.) The fact that we used the First Edition rules to facilitate the story we wished to tell in no way suggests those rules encourage our particular style of play. It only allows that style as an option. Tomb of Horrors being the preeminent adventure of that type.

 

[Doug McCrae]

But wouldn't you say your character was more successful because he never went down dungeons? He could gain xp from gold but without risking his life.

I find the concept that the Dungeons & Dragons rpg might encourage the players to avoid dungeons like the plague both hilarious and wonderful.