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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9371672" data-attributes="member: 6799660">The first game I played was a mad B, B/X, AD&D hybrid that the 'big kids' were playing. First game I owned was a first printing Mentzer Basic set. Throughout my initial run with TSR D&D, we hewed much closer to basic-classic than to advanced. Even today, I champ at the bit to get a game going (although these days it is mostly Worlds Without Number or Beyond the Wall). *probably 10-11 year-olds.I think a lot of people played a bunch of dungeon-crawling, often well into the expert set levels. It was mentioned in the books consistently, and many of the rules* were very focused on it -- your miscellaneous survival gear was a fixed weight, defending magic users was massively easier in 10' corridors than elsewhere, etc. It also was a convenient avenue of funneling the PCs towards the monsters and treasure. *including expert set rules, or at least many were not updated when the supposed gameplay loop changed I do suspect that, once people left the formulaic confines of the dungeons, they did not often jump to the formulaic wilderness of hex-crawls. Like ignoring the reaction charts* and morale checks* to instead have the DM decide when creatures were friendly or when they would run, I think a lot of us populated the wilderness as we saw fit*. Likewise, we certainly did start of "fantasy adventures" well before Dragonlance and the like. I don't remember what we always did with the whole not-treasure-hunting-->huge xp drop issue. Probably just had lots of combat and convenient-to-find treasure just as if it were a dungeon.*along with all the variation in how the game played out this entails.I do wonder if Gord was (in Gary's mind) a pre-thief class Rogue -- i. e. a Fighting Man who happened to spend a lot of time doing universally-available-ability climbing, sneaking, and trap-finding.I think we played thieves because it was an appealing archetype and concept. Also because, Holmes-onward, the game implied that you needed a thief to do the thieving things (even if they were bad at it and had a low life-expectancy). I suspect a lot of games quickly morphed into what I will call 'Playing the thief by playing the DM' -- trying your best to never end up with your DM actually making you pick up the percentile dice. Even then, I wondered why they weren't at least (effectively, in exchange for their abilities) Fighters with lighter armor instead of Magic Users without spells. The d4 hp and lackluster saves did not make sense for someone who might spring the traps or fall while climbing*. *and the 'can use all weapons' quality seemed wasted with their to-hit chart and poor combat survivability. A large part of me thinks he didn't like them and was just putting a perfunctory version out there for those who did (like weapon-vs-armor or psionics). Another part thinks this was another of his over-valuing a quality/over-fearing its abuse*. I think being able to use most magic items (both Magic User gear, and the Fighter's possibly intelligent/spell-granting magic swords) was considered a big deal -- bigger than many of us found it to matter in-actual-play*. Overall, though, I think Gary worried that letting people use dice rolls to circumvent obstacles in the game would run counter to players actually describing looking for the traps, thinking their way through challenge scenarios, etc.***kinda like just how awful mystics/monks always had to be, since being able to perform without weapons and armor was so beneficial (in that one adventure per campaign where everyone else was without their gear).**'yay, I get to use the crystal ball instead of the MU next to me'. Also, this spell-granting sword wants me to kill clerics, grants Detect Sloping Passages, and tries to take control of me.'***never mind how spells do much the same. Nor how often that devolved into "I have a list of keywords I shout, 'I check the _____' at the DM as we approach every new room.'Did... did you just pass up an opportunity to denigrate the Bard?</blockquote>

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