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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 5044279" data-attributes="member: 32740">Quite literally.&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; Surprise and combat intiative rules were HORRIBLY written, spread everywhere and extremely difficult to sort out, and since Gary didn't even use them himself he had no motivation to ever explain it all.&nbsp; I tried more than once to figure out how to run combat by the book and failed.&nbsp; The very least I learned in the attempt was that the system as written was pointlessly complicated.&nbsp; I've never played a 1E game that did NOT have a house-rule system of combat.&nbsp; It was not until I read ADDICT that I understood how it actually operated and even then there are still disagreements on some elements because of the vagueness of wording in the rules.&nbsp; I was NOT alone in this.&nbsp;Now this is combat - the most basic, common element that is going to be in any 1E game - and it basically requires a seperate, annotated 20-page document like ADDICT, produced thirty years after the fact, to explain fully and properly how it's supposed to work.&nbsp; If I'd been cleverer in my youth or been more of a rules lawyer I might have sorted it out for myself but the mere process of making the attempt proved to me it wasn't even worth the effort.&nbsp; And this is in reference to my PREFERRED edition of the game.&nbsp;Despite the fact that SOME people always have played it &quot;by the book&quot;, and even ignoring the fact that it was expected that DM's would be making significant changes for their own purposes, for any practical purpose it is quite safe to insist that 1E required house rules.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 5044279, member: 32740"] Quite literally. Yes. Surprise and combat intiative rules were HORRIBLY written, spread everywhere and extremely difficult to sort out, and since Gary didn't even use them himself he had no motivation to ever explain it all. I tried more than once to figure out how to run combat by the book and failed. The very least I learned in the attempt was that the system as written was pointlessly complicated. I've never played a 1E game that did NOT have a house-rule system of combat. It was not until I read ADDICT that I understood how it actually operated and even then there are still disagreements on some elements because of the vagueness of wording in the rules. I was NOT alone in this. Now this is combat - the most basic, common element that is going to be in any 1E game - and it basically requires a seperate, annotated 20-page document like ADDICT, produced thirty years after the fact, to explain fully and properly how it's supposed to work. If I'd been cleverer in my youth or been more of a rules lawyer I might have sorted it out for myself but the mere process of making the attempt proved to me it wasn't even worth the effort. And this is in reference to my PREFERRED edition of the game. Despite the fact that SOME people always have played it "by the book", and even ignoring the fact that it was [I]expected[/I] that DM's would be making significant changes for their own purposes, for any practical purpose it is quite safe to insist that 1E [I]required[/I] house rules. [/QUOTE]

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