D&D General Thaco the angry clown... really?

[Dausuul]

Going from what, at least two solid pages of tables to Thac0 was definitely a step forward. Could we have gone from Attack Matrices to BAB without Thac0 in-between? Maybe, maybe not. Game design exists on a continuum of evolution.

I don't think it was inherently impossible to make the jump from attack matrices straight to BAB. I do think it would have been impossible to make that jump in 2E, however, because 2E was trying to stay more-or-less backwards compatible. Going to BAB means flipping the direction of armor class, which in turn means all monster and NPC statblocks using the old system are invalidated.

 

[Willie the Duck]

He has almost NO bearing on the adventure overall and only appears in the initial carnival portion. I'll use spoilers just in case, but it's not really anything that would spoil the adventure at all:

He's a human Whitchlight Hand (carnival employee) who dresses as a clown (Painted on face etc.) and is the longest (as far as anyone knows) tenured at the carnival. Retired from performing (there was an "incident") he basically helps with the background running of the carnival particularly doing tasks for one of the owners, Mr. Witch. He's surly, doesn't like to talk, hates children, and LOVES his bubble pipe. That's about it.

That bubble pipe still throws me. It's almost like there's a specific person they're sending up.

Piers Anthony's stuff is so extremely squicky. There's a ton of problematic stuff in addition to the pedophilia, which is a sentence a person really shouldn't have to type out about a fantasy series specifically marketed to kids/young adults. I think he got by for so long, flying under the radar because most of us reading them at that age weren't old enough to articulate what was so dramatically wrong in these stories.

I think a part of it also was that it much of it was aimed at ~14 year old boys and had a bunch of jokes in them. People looked at that and said, roughly, 'ah, this guy is writing acceptable-transgression material for the pubescent set. Good job. Let them think they are rebelling with their fart jokes and panty references,' and the more egregious bits got attention-drowned-out. Kinda like later when the someone noticed some ching-chong-china level stereotyping in some Captain Underpants novels (hiding in plain sight under the, well, underpants jokes for 8 year olds).

I don't think it was inherently impossible to make the jump from attack matrices straight to BAB. I do think it would have been impossible to make that jump in 2E, however, because 2E was trying to stay more-or-less backwards compatible. Going to BAB means flipping the direction of armor class, which in turn means all monster and NPC statblocks using the old system are invalidated.

I think they could have done it simply by having a disclaimer at the front about converting AC of old material from 20 or the like. If they trust someone to use thAC0s, they must trust them to do that kind of simple math, right? They simply didn't have the appetite to do so, as pressure from on high was to maximize the backwards compatibility. It may or may not have been the right decision to retain the most 1e players (I think other factors, such as how well TSR was being run at the time, undoubtedly dwarfed this one), but I have faith that if they'd done it, people would have adapted.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't think it was inherently impossible to make the jump from attack matrices straight to BAB. I do think it would have been impossible to make that jump in 2E, however, because 2E was trying to stay more-or-less backwards compatible. Going to BAB means flipping the direction of armor class, which in turn means all monster and NPC statblocks using the old system are invalidated.

Yep. Skip Williams in an interview years ago flat out said they thought about ascending AC, but wanted it backwards compatible with 1e, and for gamers to be able to use all of their existing material with 2e.

 

[abirdcall]

I do not see this as aimed at OSR players generally or even THAC0 as a mechanic. More so the type of player who would say things like if you don't get THAC0 you shouldn't play. Those players deserve our disdain.

Without this thread I would have thought it was just a prompt to have a discussion about old D&D for new players playing the adventure.

They meet Thac0 and then a player says hey isn't that from old D&D? And then they talk a bit about that. That is 100% what would happen at my table if we played the adventure at any rate.

This might be along the lines of "Ok Boomer" and "Karen" which is talking about a specific sort of person and if you think it applies to you, well you're kind of telling on yourself.

 

[billd91]

Yep. Skip Williams in an interview years ago flat out said they thought about ascending AC, but wanted it backwards compatible with 1e, and for gamers to be able to use all of their existing material with 2e.

Even that statement suggests that, yes, we could have gone right from the matrix tables to a BAB-like formula. It's just that the designers chose usability of existing materials and backward compatibility rather than the usability of the specific game mechanic. And I really can't fault them for doing so. 1e and 2e AD&Ds were extremely compatible compared to any other adjacent D&D editions.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yep. Skip Williams in an interview years ago flat out said they thought about ascending AC, but wanted it backwards compatible with 1e, and for gamers to be able to use all of their existing material with 2e.

Not once, but twice ....

1. IIRC, Gygax considered changing to ascending AC for 1e (after all, it was ascending in Chainmail), but thought that the descending AC was already too entrenched at that point.

2. TSR Management mandated that 2e be largely compatible with 1e - blocking ascending AC.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Plenty of children read way above their reading level and encounter adult themes. I certainly was one of those. But there's something that feels off about novels like Piers Anthony wrote that include not just adult themes, but adult themes that specifically target children.

In retrospect, and speaking of the non-Xanth works (mostly because I never wanted to read those), I think it was because it seemed like it was more adult than a lot of fantasy (or science fiction), while also ... kinda aimed at the teens.

Which is flattering at the time, and super not-so-fine in retrospect. Kind of like when you're an adult, and you suddenly come across that Benny Mardones video on youtube for Into the Night and you're all like, "Wait a minute ... this was a hit song? What were we thinking?"

No, not impossible, and as @Sacrosanct mentioned, they originally had the idea of ascending armor class on the table for 2e. Whether they would've just developed more attack matrices for that, used a simple to-hit bonus, or stuck with a version of Thac0 as to hit armor class zero being what you need to roll to hit the worst possible AC, not the exact middle, who knows?

I don't think it was inherently impossible to make the jump from attack matrices straight to BAB. I do think it would have been impossible to make that jump in 2E, however, because 2E was trying to stay more-or-less backwards compatible. Going to BAB means flipping the direction of armor class, which in turn means all monster and NPC statblocks using the old system are invalidated.

I've since re-read a bunch of books that I first read in the 10-15 age range, and I cannot imagine my parents had any idea what was actually in them, just figured "oh, it's fantasy (and part of me suspects, on sale) and little Ralif likes that so we'll get that for him."

I think a part of it also was that it much of it was aimed at ~14 year old boys and had a bunch of jokes in them. People looked at that and said, roughly, 'ah, this guy is writing acceptable-transgression material for the pubescent set. Good job. Let them think they are rebelling with their fart jokes and panty references,' and the more egregious bits got attention-drowned-out. Kinda like later when the someone noticed some ching-chong-china level stereotyping in some Captain Underpants novels (hiding in plain sight under the, well, underpants jokes for 8 year olds).

If I recall correctly, the CD that came with the 3e PHB had conversion rules for going from descending to ascending AC, amongst other things. Old-School Essentials actually lists both AC systems in it, with each monster stat giving their AC in both formats. People could've absolutely managed the changeover then. In 1989, the RPG scene was awash in far more complicated rules systems than that. But one wonders what the response would've been if you had half-orcs, assassins, demons, devils, and descending AC all gone in the initial release of 2e?

I think they could have done it simply by having a disclaimer at the front about converting AC of old material from 20 or the like. If they trust someone to use thAC0s, they must trust them to do that kind of simple math, right? They simply didn't have the appetite to do so, as pressure from on high was to maximize the backwards compatibility. It may or may not have been the right decision to retain the most 1e players (I think other factors, such as how well TSR was being run at the time, undoubtedly dwarfed this one), but I have faith that if they'd done it, people would have adapted.

 

[Willie the Duck]

But one wonders what the response would've been if you had half-orcs, assassins, demons, devils, and descending AC all gone in the initial release of 2e?

Maybe not much. After all, there was very little internet* yet for gamers to whip each other into a rich, frothy frenzy over the issue. If memory serves (capital IF <insert grognard joke and declare self a persecuted demographic>), a lot of people bemoaned the loss of half-orcs, assassins, and devils/demons, but tended to blame the Satanic Panic more than TSR over it.
*yes, yes, person about to jump on this, you were on Usenet back in 198_ and ARPANET back in 197_. No one is trying to step on your old school credibility.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Maybe not much. After all, there was very little internet* yet for gamers to whip each other into a rich, frothy frenzy over the issue. If memory serves (capital IF <insert grognard joke and declare self a persecuted demographic>), a lot of people bemoaned the loss of half-orcs, assassins, and devils/demons, but tended to blame the Satanic Panic more than TSR over it.
*yes, yes, person about to jump on this, you were on Usenet back in 198_ and ARPANET back in 197_. No one is trying to step on your old school credibility.

That’s funny! We were defiant teens and blamed TSR! We kept using our 1e stuff for the most part but our DM bought some 2e stuff and used it on the sly.

I was playing half orc fighter assassins from 1e right up until grad school and 3e.

we blamed TSR for caving. In fact it may have been less pressure and more business savvy but as teens we did not have time for cold logic

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I know my group didn't care, and we were all excited as heck to be playing 2e. I was happy when the kits brought back some of the classes from 1e, though. And Thac0, like descending AC, seemed fine at the time.

I don't doubt that there were people grumbling about it, though. The modern internet was still years away, but there was Dragon magazine, where readers people discussed it...slowly.

Maybe not much. After all, there was very little internet* yet for gamers to whip each other into a rich, frothy frenzy over the issue. If memory serves (capital IF <insert grognard joke and declare self a persecuted demographic>), a lot of people bemoaned the loss of half-orcs, assassins, and devils/demons, but tended to blame the Satanic Panic more than TSR over it.
*yes, yes, person about to jump on this, you were on Usenet back in 198_ and ARPANET back in 197_. No one is trying to step on your old school credibility.