What did we do before feats, skills, and prestige classes?

[Kahuna Burger]

What did we do before feats, skills, and prestige classes?

Played GURPS. Dunno about the rest of you.

 

[EricNoah]

Customization beyond the rules still goes on in my games, by the way. Two of three players created custom classes or prestige classes to suit their character ideas for my current campaign. No one felt restricted by the presence of rules; rather, they used pieces of existing rules to make new ones.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

GURPS and Champions (later HERO).

 

[Maggan]

You know, as much fun as it is for old-timers to heap scorn on a more detailed rules set, I've got to disagree. That attitude strikes me as intellectual elitism, and it gives nostalgia too heavy a weight for my own personal taste.

Actually, the continual heaping of the same scorn over and over again, that we all have seen so many times over the years, seems to me to be ... unimaginative.

/M

 

[Numion]

I played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, 1st edition. Some of the skills in WFRP were like 3E feats, some like skills, and the advanced careers were like prestige classes.

I just don't see BD&D making you more imaginative - it just made the game more like cops & robbers.

 

[hong]

I played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, 1st edition. Some of the skills in WFRP were like 3E feats, some like skills, and the advanced careers were like prestige classes.

I just don't see BD&D making you more imaginative - it just made the game more like cops & robbers.

Hey! What's wrong with cops and robbers?

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

To expand on my pithy statement (which was pithily stated before): when I didn't have mechanical customization for my character in D&D, I didn't play D&D.

I've played other systems before and still do. Some, I'd rather play than d20 (SilCore, M&M, True20); others, I'd rather play d20 than, but would rather play than any prior version of D&D (HERO), and others, I don't really like but would rather play than AD&D (BRP, GURPS). Basic D&D, though saddled with an even more rigid class structure, gets a nod for being fairly simple.

For that matter, rather than muddle through D&D with allegedly archtypical characters, I skipped tabletop RPGs entirely and did something entirely different - played console RPGs, read books, wrote, watched movies, heck, in the time period we're talking about, you could get actual turn-based strategy games! Like, on your PC! Scary.

Console RPGs have been in a slump the last few years, and turn-based strategy games are on a "once a year, maybe, if you're lucky, and they may not be any good" schedule, so my tabletop RPG play has gone up a lot of late. Even so, only about half my tabletop gaming is d20, and of that only half is recognizably D&D.

 

[KenSeg]

Skills, feats and rules are tools that can be helpful to a DM that is in need of that support. Not all DMs are created equal in their ability to create house-rules and such to expand a game and the WOTC rules are wonderful for those who have neither the apptitude or time to do so. My own DM, with whom I have been playing for almost 20 years now, created many house-rules in the past that are just now making their way into WOTC official rules. However, he no longer has the time to spend on creating such anymore due to work, children and energy. So now we utilize more official feats, skills and such and are glad to have them available.

However, I would like to say one thing for the benefit of the newer players in this wonderful hobby. Ten years from now you will not remember the awesome trip attack feat your character had back then. You will likely remember that he was famous for this ability to get drunk every single time at the bar or always fall in lust with the lady who turns out to be a demon or such.

I have been playing since 1978 and have created dozens of characters over the years of all classes and races. I remember a handful now and none of them had wonderful skills or such but were roleplayed in a unique way. There was Garth, a standard fighter who always managed to fall off his horse in combat and created the unique style of fighting that is still called Buttsu. There is Loren, a run of the mill elf magic-user who developed into a one-man crusade to repopulate the elven race. My jamacian-style wizard who dabbled in delivering babies. Spend your time making unique characters, regardless of the rules and you will have fond memories at the end of your days.

-KenSeg
gaming since 1978

 

[Nareau]

Yes, we used something called "Imagination". I have no idea where we got it from, or where it has gone today, or just exactly how it was used, but it was definitely involved somehow.

Somebody's got to say it: "Dude, imagination is totally broken!"

Actually, that's not far off. It seems to me that earlier editions of the game didn't have such a focus on "game balance". I could be wrong on this, but I think that's one of the biggest philosophical changes that came with 3.x.

So before these modular, streamlined rules, we did just make stuff up. And often as not, it turned out to be wildly unbalancing. Not to say it wasn't fun...

Spider

 

[painandgreed]

Yes, in 1E, we'd use imagination and house rules. So when your Legolas modeled elf jumps and grabs ahold of a tusk and swing sup on the back of the monster, you would use your fighter or ranger elf and tell the DM, "I jump up and grab the tusk of the monster and swing over ontop and shoot it in the head". the Dm would either say "ok", "You can't do that", "Make a dex check to swing up and then take and attack roll as your action", "make and attack roll to grab the tusk and swing up and that's your action this round", "use these acrobatic rules I made up", or anything else that the DM thought was proper. Each DM and each campaign was different. With each version of (A)D&D, they have basically added in those house rules or similar versions so that games become more and more standardized. Now it becomes possible to travel from one game to another even across the country and still have a good idea of how a DM will handle the situation or at least be able to suggest a reasonable course of action he'll understand. In 1E, if you played under a different DM, you had no idea how he'd handle it and he'd have no idea what to think of rules or solutions other DMs had come up with. Now if you ask to make a jump roll as a move action to swing via tusk onto of the monster and then make an attack action, every DM will understand what you mean.

Ya, there was lots of imagination used, but also the first thing I had to ask any new gaming group was what house rules they played with. Many times they didn't even had then codified but they simply all knew them. Often, I'd be handed a three ring binder of house rules that would take me a couple of game sessions to read through and more to master. This is one of the main reasons I enjoy and play the new versions despite a preceived loss of imagination.