Surviving low-level old school D&D

[Wulf Ratbane]

Our door opening practices and procedures handbook was so long that I can't even remember all the steps in the checklist anymore. In the culture of early edition fandom, that means I am EXTREMELY MANLY.

That's why I've switched gears to out-mincing The Ghost. More challenging.

You say you played the likes of Galahad and Percival! Ha! I played second squire to Percival's squire. He was a wan, pasty boy, whose days were spent washing (and then lightly perfuming) the smallclothes of the first squire. He dreamed that one day he might screw up the courage to perform the song he might one day write about the exploits of the first squire of Percival.

He avoided more dungeons than your character ever even dreamed of avoiding.

 

[an_idol_mind]

War dogs. They were something like 15gp on the equipment list, and they had a better chance of survival than most 1st-level fighters. Really, well-trained animals of any kind were a low-level adventurer's best friend.

 

[Quartz]

Jeebus, but it's 30+ years ago that I first played. I don't remember a lot of dying early on, though I do remember my 1st level thief on his own encountering a 2nd level evil cleric and surviving. Mostly we survived. Ranged combat was key. We had none of this 'first level wizards are only good for one spell' malarkey. All characters had bandoleers of daggers or darts or oil to set afire. Going toe to toe was a last resort. Sure treasure chests were trapped: we opened them from afar. Or got prisoners to do it. Or broke the chest open by tossing it in a pit trap. Never stand in front of an open door. We purchased scrolls and potions galore. We used the environment. Happy days.

 

[ExploderWizard]

My early Holmes/Moldvay playing experiences were full of character death. Becoming a 2nd level character was something to be celebrated instead of expected. Our parties did not play very intelligently at first (thus the deaths) and it took some effort to become cautious enough for survival to become a regular occurance rather than the exception. We were 10 year old kids and the concept of a merciful DM didn't occur to us at first.
At some point we started declaring max HP at 1st level as a universal house rule.

Frequent deaths did have one effect on our games that has been hard to recapture. When the party DID actually make it out alive on thier own the thrill of victory was very strong.

As I remember, the frequent and hideous deaths that happened on most adventures didn't kill the fun for us. When a PC died (especially doing something stupid), we would all get a laugh out of it, roll up a quick replacement, and move on. That feel is harder to capture with modern systems where characters have to be built rather than generated and require so much time to put together. Character death has always been a part of the game but it has become more of a chore to work up a new PC these days which makes PC death a lot less fun than it used to be.

 

[Storminator]

Honestly, thief was my least favorite class to play, and I had at least a 50% death rate with them. But we usually treated it as a dungeon exploration technician, not a thief/rogue/swashbuckler, but a combat engineer/EOD expert. Some folks like that role in D&D -- and I have total respect for it in real life.

We lost all our thieves. We had 4th level PCs, but no thief. Since it was impossible to make a character at higher than 1st level (how would you know how many magic items he had?!) We had to make another 1st level thief... But we didn't want to make another 1st level party, since the odds of getting a thief up to 4th level were pretty poor (see all the dead thieves...).

So we had the Darwinian Crime Spree! We made 26 1st level thieves with brilliant names like A-1, B-52, CO2, D-Day... and sent them against the Keep on the Borderlands in a massive crime wave. Each thief robbed and stole until he was caught. The last surviving thief got all the XP (remember to divide by the number of survivors!) and made it to 4th level. That's how we ended up with an awesome thief named H2O.

PS

 

[The Ghost]

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.

It is a mistake to say that he never put his life at risk - he did. Just not in the traditional sense of going down into a dungeon and cleaning out all the monsters that inhabited it. The one dungeon my character found himself in was because he was captured. An actual dungeon!

Our inspiration for playing the game was found in movies like: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Braveheart, First Knight, Excalibur, and The Sword in the Stone. Often our adventures were about robbing the rich to give to the poor, seeking out holy relics, organizing the people to fight against the evil baron, finding mystical allies to help our cause, etc. When combats did occur, which were about 2-4 times per character level, we tried to do so on our terms. For example, ambushes were a common tactic. Really, we just mimiced what we saw in movies.

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

I suppose from a certain point of view it is a little ironic that an optimal way to game the system, so to speak, is to completely avoid both dungeons and dragons. Our intention was never to game the system, but to mimic the movies we loved.

 

[Hussar]

I did too, but, I'm not entirely sure some of the things you list here are cheating.

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).

4d6 drop the lowest was the standard rolling method in 1e D&D. Basic/Expert D&D allowed you to lower some stats in order to raise others at a cost of 2 for 1. 3d6 in order with no changes is OD&D only I believe.

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

We did this one too. Continued doing it in 1e. Made rangers rock on toast. 16 con got you 20 hp at 1st level.

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

We didn't do this one. But, then again, Plate mail was only 60 gold, so, it wasn't like your fighter wasn't going to start with a 2 AC right off the shot.

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.)

Now, we did use hordes. Mostly cos we played modules.

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

Y'know, even in 1e, we gave bonus xp to casters for casting spells. Surprised the heck out of me when our house rule became official in 2e.

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

Yup. Loved me the heck out of the Unearthed Arcana 1e. Just warmed my munchkin little cockles it did.

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

Me too. Then again, we ran modules and those things were just STACKED.

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.

Yup, pretty much the same here.

Funnily enough, when I did run 3e straight by the book, I slaughtered the PC's. The campaign averaged a PC death every three sessions. Gack. Since then, I use Action Points to mitigate 3e lethality and that's worked for us.

 

[Dyson Logos]

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

In your games maybe.

My favourite characters are a thief and a cleric. Clerics especially as the front-line warriors of their gods / churches / cults / personal craziness remain one of my favourite characters throughout all editions. The leader in our B/X campaign is a cleric (as was the leader in our last game, which was a TPK).

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!

Not quite, but close at times. Once the elven cloak and boots were in play, however, the thief's ability to backstab got pretty brutal. Also by level 3 they are hearing noise 50% of the time in B/X (and they hit level 3 while the elf was still level 1).

 

[Dyson Logos]

Sure treasure chests were trapped: we opened them from afar. Or got prisoners to do it. Or broke the chest open by tossing it in a pit trap.

Charm Person wasn't a spell for turning monsters against their kin, it was a way to ensure we had a door & chest opening machine on our side.

 

[Rel]

We had some deaths but I think we also cheated a lot to avoid them.

But this thread has been inspirational. I think I might run a Basic D&D game at the next NC Game Day.