What do you dislike about 1E?

[Grazzt]

If a player wants to play something from a banned book, either tell him no or come to a compromise. Either way, the DM makes the call. If the players can't handle that, then they can hit the road and come back when they want to play like adults.

Kane

To borrow a page from your book Kane-

Quoted for truth.

 

[Pants]

Temptation and need to get them. All of the rules are not in the core books. Complete arcane has the rules for sneak attack and spells for instance something that is not covered in the core books but can come up ijn a normal game.

I own many, many d20 books, most of which never get used, unfortunately. Even though I lug around a backpack chock full of gaming material, my players simply don't really care about some PrC in this book or some spell in that book. They're perfectly happy playing a Core game only.

I really think that many people are missing the point of this thread. The point is not to compare 3.x/2.x/OD&D to 1e, it's to point out what you don't like about 1e.

 

[Kanegrundar]

You know as well as I, Pants, that there can never be a thread about one edition or another (especially one that asks for the things that people thought were bad about any edition) without it becoming a comparison thread.

Kane

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

I own many, many d20 books, most of which never get used, unfortunately. Even though I lug around a backpack chock full of gaming material, my players simply don't really care about some PrC in this book or some spell in that book. They're perfectly happy playing a Core game only.

I really think that many people are missing the point of this thread. The point is not to compare 3.x/2.x/OD&D to 1e, it's to point out what you don't like about 1e.

Thank you Sir!

I saw the thread on what people did not like about 3.x and figured, why not ask the peanut gallery what they disliked about 1E. Some very good comments, but I think this thread is starting sink into a mire of flaming. Who care's what another DM rules 0 on, or says no, it's his group and he can do what he bloody well pleases.

Personnaly, I would never say no to my players just because it is not needed, are group is the BEST one in Chicago Bar none and we keep it that way by being cool with one another!


Scott

 

[Orius]

The thing I most dislike about 1E is that is was before my time unfortunately... therefore I can't take part in such wonderful threads about remembering the good ole days before there was dirt when 1E ruled the RPG land.

Same here. I never truely experienced 1e, so I dislike being able to discuss the nuances with the grognards. Everything I know about it is really little more than hearsay, or readsay to be more accurate.

Any DM who quashed silly rules arguments by fiat in 1E - and I was one of them - is quite capable of doing the same in 3E.

I agree completely. The biggest misconception about 3e is that is disempowers DMs. DMs need to learn how to enforce the game instead of rolling over to the players every time a rules lawyer pulls some nonsense rule out of his posterior. The same thing goes for rule books. If the DM only wants to use the three core books, he needs to say so.

 

[Orius]

Did WotC take your dog hostage and threaten you bump him off unless you get their latest release?

Ouch. That's a new tactic from the Evil Gaming Police (tm).

 

[T. Foster]

I had a nice long post on this topic going earlier but I lost it (stupid work computer), so here's the Reader's Digest version:

While "dislike" is too strong a word (for many years 1E was my edition of choice -- I was running a 1E campaign as recently as 2004, and am currently still playing in an online one) there are a few things that I've come to "like less" about 1E recently:

1) too much focus on 'worldbuilding' overshadows actual play

2) too many complicated and over-detailed rules additions (especially those that seem to have been added in response to complaints about OD&D's lack of 'realism')

3) too much emphasis on conformity and 'official' rules and procedures (while simultaneously encouraging the DM to 'make stuff up' for areas the official rules don't cover)

4) that elements 1-3 combine to make the game less accessible to 'casual' players -- people who want to just sit down and play without having to either design an entire world or memorize hundreds of pages of rules

Of course all of these became worse, not better, in subsequent editions (2E and 3E) and by comparison to those 1E looks pretty good, but in comparison to my current edition of choice ('brown book' OD&D) all of these stand out.

 

[teitan]

Wow - you're using Rule 0 to tell people how to play their characters? I don't think the problems that you have with that have to do with the edition that people play.

No, I am using Rule 0 to promote party harmony. Everyone else was ticked of at the player in that situation as well. There are two guys that used to be in my group that would constantly use D&D to get revenge on the other players for perceived wrongs in another game. I mean literally they built their characters to kill the other players or somehow screw them over. Whenever they did something that caused an arguement at the table they said "I'm just playing my character".

Other arguements with some of these players were straight rules arguements in situations where I didn't want to look the rule up, called a house rule for the situation and one of the 5 would get out his book and look it up ANYWAY.

Jason

 

[National Acrobat]

And remember, unlike latter edition dragon's, 1st edition dragons could only breath 3 times per day, but they could breath every round if they choose to.

You mean dragons can't breathe every round now?

 

[gizmo33]

I mean literally they built their characters to kill the other players or somehow screw them over. Whenever they did something that caused an arguement at the table they said "I'm just playing my character".

This happened when my friends and I were 12 years old and playing 1E, a long long time ago. So it's definitely not an edition-specific phenomena. PvP type stuff, IMO falls outside of Rule 0 because it's not an "in-game" rules judgement. You don't need any special authority as a DM to simply refuse to spend your time in ways that don't interest you.

On the topic of 1E, I will say that due to extensive playtesting as an adolescent - 1E is not good at all for PvP.

I get rules lawyers to look up rules for me, they're good resources if they're polite, and if I know 90% of the rules anyway (which avoids unfairness due to selectivity). I'm not one of those "story-oriented" DMs though, so I don't need the control. In your case though, it sounds like some of your players are very aggressive people, and some people you just can't cooperate with.