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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 5726988" data-attributes="member: 11760">I played 1E back when it was just "AD&D." And the game was played mostly the way it is today -- TSR's modules (and Judges Guild, for that matter) were almost entirely about "go to this place, stick a sword in these people, go through their pockets." Yeah, there was a bit more of stealing everything that wasn't nailed down (unless the nails looked valuable, in which case, we took those too). The Secret of Bone Hill turned out to be that robbing the town was as productive as fighting the monsters -- the same went for the Village of Hommlett.But playing a magic-user back then still primarily meant "I cower in the back while the fighter does all the work."I played magic-users back then, and it mostly sucked, and most people I knew didn't do it more than once, because "I cower" is a really unsatisfying thing to announce each turn. None of my friends read Jack Vance. They certainly didn't go into AD&D thinking, "whoa, I hope I can cower and indulge in clever wordplay instead of actually fighting!"Yeah, the XP system did encourage a lot of us to make thieves and rob NPCs blind, but most adventures were still about combat, and until magic-users took over the game around the time they got fireball, no one wanted to play them.I killed Lolth in Q1 with my cleric. They were pretty damned potent.Mark Rein*Hagen's voice hadn't changed at the time people were originally playing AD&D. There was no other game in town for people who wanted to be more wizardly.And "hey, if you're not having fun, it's your fault" is a pretty lame attitude, and one that smart game designers don't indulge in. Given the amount of playtesting 3E went through, I suspect they heard from a lot of people that announcing "I cower again" sucked and changed 3E wizards as a result.</blockquote>

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