What DO you like about 1E AD&D

[Odhanan]

What do you like about First Edition AD&D?

What makes it a great game, in your opinion?

 

[Particle_Man]

The rich prose and cool pictures are inspiring. I love the Sutherland pic. of the Paladin in Hell, right next to the Paladin class description.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

The less-polished more-enthusiast feel of most publications.

Strangely enough, the more professional it looks, the less soul it seems to have.

And that applies to any RPG.

 

[Clavis]

1st Edition was great because it was a set of rule guidelines to be used by a DM in running a role-playing game. It wasn't consistent or complete, but it encouraged and allowed for creativity.

The original 3 rulebooks read like they were written by a fellow gamer with a real and definite personality, in contrast the 3.x edition rulebooks which read like every word has been run through a corperate focus group before being printed.

The stat blocks for monsters (who were meant to be defeated, not have their ecologies understood) were short enough that a human being could write adventures, by hand, on composition paper, and still have time for a social life. In fact, all you really needed was a rough map and a few jotted notes to legitimately run an entire evening's game. It didn't matter whether or not a Gnoll can play the flute well.

You didn't need miniatures, but could use them if you liked.

The game could be run magic-heavy, or magic light, without altering the rules at all.

Gnomes weren't bards, and halflings ate too much.

Above all, 1st edition had BALLS. Succubi were naked. Go to the city, and you'll see whores. Screw with the whores, and you might catch a venereal disease. Gold was for buying better whores, the kind that you didn't get venereal disease from. Otherwise, use your gold to create a stronghold, and deal with whores of another kind. PCs could be assassins. Evil humanoids did awful things to people, and deserved to die for it. Even the females and children.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

One word: Psionics.

 

[jdrakeh]

The simple premise. You are heroes who kill monsters and find treasures, no other explanations offered. This super simple default premise has thousands of possible permutations and is both easy to grasp and explain to others. This makes the learning curve of AD&D in regard to "what this game is about" very, very, gentle.

Character classes. For much the same reasons that I like the simple premise. How many people don't know what a Thief is? Or a Figter? These concepts, like the premise, are very easy to grasp and explain to others. Again, this is one of those things that really levels out the learning curve for RPG newcomers.

The wide open settings. Once upon a time, every consumer's FR or Greyhawk was individual and unique, because there weren't mountains of sourcebooks or novels telling them how their setting should be. As the setting supplement treadmill ramped up after the demise of AD&D 1e, this really started to change -- Tina's FR looked like Jeff's FR, which looked like Tom's FR, which looked like Randy's FR, as nauseum.

Post AD&D 1e TSR created the idea that if you weren't using all of the official supplements for Setting X, then you weren't doing it right. They grew this poison perception into a small cottage industry fueled by nerd fear that pioneered such hated elements of RPGs as metaplot and splatbooks. Some people think that this was a White Wolf thing. Nuh-uh. TSR sowed the seeds of this mass consumer mind rape years ago.

If we ever do a "Things you hate about AD&D 2e!" thread, you can pretty much guess where I'll be starting

 

[Henry]

1) Quick to create characters. With a minor amount of experience, players could make a character in 15 minutes or less.
2) Quirky magic items that were not formulaic in any sense. Wands had multiple functions, miscellaneous magic items were often mysterious to figure out, and even mixing two potions or drinking them too many at one time was Russian Roulette. I loved a sword that was +3 to hit, +6 vs. cold creatures, and could extinguish all flames in 10 feet just by thrusting its blade into them, or a sword that could have about 4 different types of bosnuses depending on what kind of reptile you were.
3) The math from 1st to 9th level worked really, really well. Very rarely was a monster so tough that even the Magic-user couldn't hit it with a staff.
4) The DMG had advice, charts and tables running from humorous to truly inspired. I may never use the "Wandering Prostitute" table, but I can still use those random dungeon maps, or dungeon dressing tables, or lycanthropy rules, or rules for hiring common laborers and sages.
5) The strong division between classes and their roles. It's one thing I actually am hopeful about for 4E; in 1E, fighters and wizards and thieves, etc. really didn't step on one another's toes. The magic-user, often touted as making a thief obsolete, really could only pull his tricks a few times per day.
6) Ranger giant-class bonus. YEAH, BABY!
7) The ease of running monsters in that system; about a dozen or less stats and that's it. Again, one of the tricks I'm noticing they're pulling for 4E.
8) Spells that had drawbacks that had to be considered. Compressive Fireballs, rebounding lightning bolts, Fly Spells that could end and drop you out of the sky if you weren't cautious with your time limit, and haste spells that could kill you of system shock if you were unlucky all added to the risks inherent in magic.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

The stat blocks for monsters (who were meant to be defeated, not have their ecologies understood) were short enough that a human being could write adventures, by hand, on composition paper, and still have time for a social life. In fact, all you really needed was a rough map and a few jotted notes to legitimately run an entire evening's game. It didn't matter whether or not a Gnoll can play the flute well.

You didn't need miniatures, but could use them if you liked.

The game could be run magic-heavy, or magic light, without altering the rules at all.

Gnomes weren't bards, and halflings ate too much.

Above all, 1st edition had BALLS. Succubi were naked. Go to the city, and you'll see whores. Screw with the whores, and you might catch a venereal disease. Gold was for buying better whores, the kind that you didn't get venereal disease from. Otherwise, use your gold to create a stronghold, and deal with whores of another kind. PCs could be assassins. Evil humanoids did awful things to people, and deserved to die for it. Even the females and children.

All of the above plus combat was fast. Extraordinarily fast compared to 3x.

While I admit to having been seduced by feats, I really miss fast-paced combat with loud heavy metal music in the background. The way I ran combat back then, it was fast, furious, blood-pumping adrenaline rushes. Now, it's a lot more like a chess game. Used to be combat would take three songs max. Now it's more like three CDs!

 

[Henry]

Used to be combat would take three songs max. Now it's more like three CDs!

I've never found low-level 3rd edition that slow, and in fact find up through about 8th level or so it's as fast as it ever was. However, I do find high-level (12th and up) exactly like you describe. ( I had a 24th level climax combat, about 12 rounds of combat, under another DM take SEVEN HOURS.)

 

[Tewligan]

One word: Psionics.

Holy crap, that's the one thing I NEVER thought I'd see listed as a 1e favorite! Hell, I love 1e, but I hate that particular mutant stepchild.

I love the purple prose in the rulebooks that's still fun to read 25+ years later. I love the tables and charts listing everything from the reputed magical properties of gems to typical dungeon dressings to the infamous wandering prostitutes. I'm apparently one of the few people who appreciates the demihuman level limits. I enjoy monster statblocks that don't take up half a page, and rules that don't have a hardwired assumption about a PC's standard wealth and magic items quota. I like being 12 years old. I like nipples in the Monster Manual (this goes with the being 12 years old thing, actually.)

I'm also quite fond of bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, but I guess I can't credit Gygax for those...