What do you miss about AD&D 1e?

[Samothdm]

I miss being 12.

I miss gathering with my friends every Friday for pizza and then playing D&D until Sunday night, every weekend, without fail, deep in 12-year-old-boy funk, stinking up a dark little upstairs room.

There's a group of us who are doing close to this very same thing next weekend. We're all in our 30s now, most of us married and some with kids. One of the group who lives out-of-state is coming down here for the weekend and the one thing he wanted to do is play D&D. So, the DM is going to run an all-day one-shot on Saturday starting in the late morning and running all night until we're finished. He's making pre-made characters for us (based on some input as to what race and class we want to be) and he's going to give everyone little personality things like "You hate so-and-so's character". Also, we're all going to be evil.

It sounds like fun - I haven't done anything like that for 15 years or more. I just wonder if we'll make it through all day. I anticipate people getting tired and losing focus after around 5 or 6 hours. That happens when you get older.

 

[Akrasia]

... Illusionists having a group of spells that no one else had. .

I loved the 1st edition Illusionist class! That class was the essence of cool. Later editions' "specialist mages/wizards" failed to capture the uniqueness of the original illusionist. My favourite early PC was a human illusionist that managed to reach, after 2 years of hard high-school adventuring, the heady heights of 11th level (a sadly minor achievement in 3.x).

And the class made the gnome rather unique (as the only demi-human race that could be illusionists).

... I eagerly await Castles and Crusades.

Yeah, a true illusionist will return! Yeah!

 

[Veritas]

You know what else I miss? Hobbit-like halflings... these 3e pseudo-kender bother me. I guess they wanted to move away from the tolkien roots, but why not change elves and dwarves too if that's the reason, they're from tolkien roots too? There was no reason to change them... this gypsy-fication was just annoying.

 

[The Grackle]

You know what else I miss? Hobbit-like halflings... these 3e pseudo-kender bother me. I guess they wanted to move away from the tolkien roots, but why not change elves and dwarves too if that's the reason, they're from tolkien roots too? There was no reason to change them... this gypsy-fication was just annoying.

I'd say D&D elves are pretty untolkienesque. They're short and frail, and masters of wizardry, and they consort w/humans on a pretty regular basis.

I can't believe I just said untolkienesque.

 

[Veritas]

Hmph... okay, that's a good point... I kinda jumped the gun on that one...

Anyone know the origin for the D&D style elves? I've often wondered why most descriptions of elves are tall and graceful, but in D&D they're short.

 

[D+1]

What do you folks (those of you who were around back in the day) miss about AD&D 1e? Am I just seeing things through nostalgia-fogged goggles, or was there really something special in AD&D 1e, something that we've perhaps lost?

Yep. Wipe off some of that nostalgia. what's missing is some of the creativity and imagination that was a REQUIREMENT of all players in those days. BECAUSE the rules were so... unpolished and there was virtually no consideration for, "But this is the OFFICIAL way to do things," the sheer madcap inventiveness that was involved in playing D&D has taken a serious hit. Not in MY game of course, just YOURS.

But seriously, when you look at a CLASSIC 1E module (say something from the GDQ series) there's NOTHING there! It's a map, a teeny box of descriptive text and the barest minimum of stats - generally just hit points and AC when that's not book-standard. But those are the adventures that all the grognards remember so fondly. Why? Because the DM, the players all filled in the blanks. It wasn't all laid out for them - they invented it. They brought the BBEG to life, brought him back again for the next adventure, manufactured the ties between one adventure and the next even without prompting to do so.

That's what I missed. But having identified that as the missing element it's simplicity to reintroduce it.

 

[Voadam]

Aside from that who actually used level limits or the stupid dual class character rules?

Jason

We did, but our games rarely got to the point where level limits kicked in.

As a DM I miss the slow advancement. I got a real feel for the PCs power levels and things didn't overwhelm me in the rate of change of PC power and opposition challenge.

I miss the pre-oriental adventures, WSG, DSG, era where you had weapon proficiencies, class and race abilities, and everything else is up in the air.

I'm not a big fan of the later 1e/2e nwp and 3e skill systems.

I miss the days where there was no mechanic for roleplaying activities such as talking and interacting with NPCs, you just talked to them and interacted with them.

I miss having short stat blocks for monsters and npcs. ("see MM" or "War 2" don't count as stat blocks IMO).

I miss being able to use material from any edition of the game with no real need for conversion.

 

[The Grackle]

I miss the days where there was no mechanic for roleplaying activities such as talking and interacting with NPCs, you just talked to them and interacted with them.

Yeah, I miss that too. It drives me crazy when players don't even try to act convincingly and instead say, "I'll roll to bluff."

But if you want to play a high charisma character, and you're just an average guy in real life, you need something in the game to represent that.

It's hard for me to decide if I like it or hate it.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

1. The art.

2. Whoever made those hardcovers designed them to withstand a nuclear war! Savage books, I tell ya.

 

[The Grackle]

Anyone know the origin for the D&D style elves? I've often wondered why most descriptions of elves are tall and graceful, but in D&D they're short.

They're a perfect union of Tolkien's vision of elves and Keeblers.


I'd take a D&D elf any day over a Middle Earth elf; those guys are so stuck up.