What do you miss about AD&D 1e?

[Greg K]

There are very few things that I miss about 1e. However, I do miss the following:
1) Despite being overpowered, the official barbarian was not a berserker!
2) Gygax at least attempted to acknowledge that barbarians come from differing cultures and environments and these factors influence the barbarians access to skills and weapon availability.
3) The slower advancement of characters (while advancement was admittedly too slow in 1e, the official 3e advancement is too fast).
4) The desire to buy the majority of official products.

 

[Veritas]

Yeah, one thing I can say for 1e, is that my 6th/6th level archer/ranger was much more of an impressive achievement in that version than it is in 3e... people talking about their 18th level sorcerers and such, that they took from 1st to 18th level in about a year's time, and it took me a few years to go up as high as that... and the xp for that character equalled that of a single-classed 8th level character.

My DM for that game started playing 3e and he hated it. Advancement was too fast, he had no clue what to do or what was going on because it was too much all at once. We killed some wolves and suddenly we were 2nd level... when in 1e we'd take out an entire tribe of goblins and *maybe* make it to 2nd, if they had some good treasure. heh.

 

[greymist]

How I knew where every rule was in the DMG or the PHB or UA, regardless of the chaotic layouts.
How the rule books didn't sound like technical manuals.
How an NPC's stats could be summarised in a couple of lines.
How a single battle wouldn't take two hours in real time.
How you had to use all of your dice, all of the time!
How multi-class PCs (without level limits, of course ) were not sunstantially weaker than their single-class companions.
The absolute newness of each module.
And of course....no prestige classes!

 

[Mandos]

What I am missing is our old local games shop, with the old guy at the desk: "Hey, good boy, are you a DM? No? Then stop looking at this book, it's not for the players, but for the Dungeon Masters!" And the guys allowed to look at these books were taken with great respect, if not awe.

They were the Dungeon Masters and we were only players...

 

[Ranger REG]

Diaglo hasn't posted to this thread yet?

Weird.

You think he's okay? Abducted by aliens?

 

[Algolei]

He's bidin' his time.

Personally, I don't miss one single thing from 1st edition! Not a single thing!








'Cause I still play it.

 

[Samothdm]

Yeah, you all totally have me thinkin' about everything we've been missing from 1st Edition AD&D:

1) Maximum strength limits for women. Women simply can't be as strong as men. Ever. Why did they change that?

2) Ability scores between, roughly, 6 and 13 that were all basically equivalent. That was a very good, balance way of handling the ability scores.

3) Level limits for "demi-humans". Elves shouldn't be allowed to surpass humans as wizards because they aren't as magically inclined. It's totally logical that an elf, with a multi-thousand year lifespan, should be limited to 12th level as a wizard. I wish we had those back now in 3rd Edition.

4) Weapon Speed Factors. They totally made combat realistic and easy to manage. You knew that, even if you lost the initiative, you could attack with your dagger first because it was faster than your opponent's battle axe, which was slower than that guy's halberd, who also had a higher initiative. Or something.

5) Big huge blocks of text to describe class powers with no tables to break them out. It was much easier to read through massive blocks of text to figure out what exactly the paladin got to do at 6th level.

6) Level titles. They should totally bring back level titles, as someone suggested. It was awesome that your cleric was actually a member of at least four distinctly different earth-based religions that had no relation to the fantasy campaign. "You're a cleric of Odin?" "Yes, I am. Well, no, I'm not a cleric. I'm a Lama. But, next level I'll be a Bishop!"

Seriously, I miss the time and place I was in at the point that I was playing 1st Edition D&D. It was fun. But, nostalgia doesn't always make things better. And, as people said, you can't go back. My theory is that the young people who were first exposed to D&D via 3rd Edition will be having these same discussions in 15-20 years about their version of the game.

 

[Samothdm]

Diaglo hasn't posted to this thread yet?

All he'd do it comment about how 1E AD&D is still about 5 years too "new".

 

[Akrasia]

Yeah, you all totally have me thinkin' about everything we've been missing from 1st Edition AD&D ...

... Seriously, I miss the time and place I was in at the point that I was playing 1st Edition D&D. It was fun. But, nostalgia doesn't always make things better. .

Wow. We actually made it to 3 pages in this thread before someone decided to crap all over it.

Oh well, it couldn't last forever.

And, as people said, you can't go back.

Ummm .. who said this?

In any case, the fact that "people" might have said it, does not prevent it from being complete and utter rubbish.

Plenty of people play 1st edition (or, in my case, RC D&D) and have a great time.

You can go back. And sometimes it is fun.

My theory is that the young people who were first exposed to D&D via 3rd Edition will be having these same discussions in 15-20 years about their version of the game.

Naw -- they'll be too busy being psyched about the new feats and prestige classes in 7th edition.

 

[Veritas]

Ah, I love sarcasm. It's such a fine art.
I agree with your sarcastic points, except for the following...

4) Weapon Speed Factors. They totally made combat realistic and easy to manage. You knew that, even if you lost the initiative, you could attack with your dagger first because it was faster than your opponent's battle axe, which was slower than that guy's halberd, who also had a higher initiative. Or something.

Speed factor only came into play to resolved tied initiative rolls, or when you were attacking characters who weren't involved in trading weapon blows, like casting a spell. You compared the weapon speed to the number of segments it took to cast the spell and if the casting time is less than the weapon speed factor, the spell can be cast before the weapon hits.
You can also use it *instead* of initiative rolls, using the speed of the weapon only to determine who strikes first in a round.

Also, with level titles, I kinda liked those. It offered some flavour. That's not to say that some of the titles weren't kinda stupid. Grand Master of Flowers? Gimme a break... but in general, level titles were kinda neat.