What do you miss about AD&D 1e?

[Testament]

On the issue of CRs and the "Culture of Balance", I have to disagree. I'm a firm believer in status quo encounters, and CRs are there as a tool for the GM to work out what is an appropriate challenge for a party, to avoid mistakes and TPKing on the first encounter.

 

[Veritas]

Mt. Dew... without... caffeine?!?!

I... I feel faint. What the hell kinda country are you folks running up there?!?!

One where not many people drink Mt Dew. heheh.

It's a fairly retarded rule, I'll admit. I have no idea, but at some point in the past, someone ruled that soft drinks must classify as "Colas" in order to have caffeine... so the classic colas, plus Dr Pepper and Barq's Rootbeer can get away with it... but Mt Dew and Mello Yellow don't. Pepsi and Coke up here have to use a different formula for it.

Believe me, I thought the "extreme-sport" commercials for Mt Dew were really weird until I went to Disneyworld with my wife and poured myself a really big glass of Mello Yellow to take back to the room with me (I hadn't had it in a looong time). She knew it had caffeine, but I didn't... I was pretty wired. lol.

 

[Akrasia]

Like mead... good ole' 13% alcohol mead. MmmmmMmmmmm

Heh, mead's okay, but a tad too sweet for my tastes.

What I'm hankering for is a good jug of GROG. By the elder gods, that stuff is hard to find around here.

(I remember there was an article in the "Best of Dragon 2" on taverns and inns -- it listed all kinds of cool sounding alcoholic beverages. In the decades since then, I have managed to try most of them, but GROG remains out of my thirsty grasp!)

 

[johnsemlak]

What do I miss about 1e?

- The quality of the bindings on those book (near indestructable)

The DMG and the ohter early sourcebooks may have had good bindings, but the later ones (Oriental adventures springs to mind) had bindings that left something to be desired.

WotC have upped the overal quality of bindings IMO.

 

[diaglo]

i don't miss anything about 1edADnD. even tho, i find it to be a better game than later editions. it still falls short of OD&D.

 

[diaglo]

Diaglo hasn't posted to this thread yet?

i don't post on the weekends. after i go home from work on friday... ENWurld is dead to me.

 

[Akrasia]

The DMG and the ohter early sourcebooks may have had good bindings, but the later ones (Oriental adventures springs to mind) had bindings that left something to be desired.

WotC have upped the overal quality of bindings IMO.

The early books had AMAZING bindings (still better than the WotC bindings, after all these decades) -- but you're right about the UA binding (which was infamous). I don't know about later TSR books.

And of course WotC abandoned the matte covers of the earlier editions. Man -- bad move (aethetically, if not with respect to being "coke-bottle-proof")!

 

[Henry]

God only knows what the bindings on the AD&D DMG and PHB would cost nowadays; I swear, as much as mine went through, I'd think you could hook each side of the cover to a truck and a boat trailer, and pull the boat with it instead of a tow chain. Gutenberg Bibles should be so sturdy.

Oh, and Oriental Adventures were tough enough in their day. One guy on ENWorld about a year ago told the story of how a 1st edition OA saved him from serious injury when his brother threw a knife at him, and he shielded himself with the book, and caught it in the cover.

Oh, and I'll be the first to say, Akrasia, that you can't go back - not in the same sense, anyway. The game's still playable, of course, but to me feels quite stale when trying to play it now compared to them. I'd have to have the same people, and similar circumstances to then than to now - but I wouldn't trade my 3E memories for the world; I've got people who I enjoy playing with now, I spend just as much prep time as I used to (I looked up my old 2nd edition notes from years ago - amazingly, it really hasn't changed much!) and I'm really not missing anything in terms of game rule differences.

Now, I prep a LOT more now than from when I played 1e and Basic D&D, because I was ten to seventeen back then - I used to prep not at all! Then again, it wasn't a campaign back then either, just a string of adventures with no plot or background, so times changed there, too.

 

[Nisarg]

Heh, mead's okay, but a tad too sweet for my tastes.

What I'm hankering for is a good jug of GROG. By the elder gods, that stuff is hard to find around here.

(I remember there was an article in the "Best of Dragon 2" on taverns and inns -- it listed all kinds of cool sounding alcoholic beverages. In the decades since then, I have managed to try most of them, but GROG remains out of my thirsty grasp!)

Um.. I hate to disappoint you, but I take it you don't know that grog is just watered-down rum? It was the standard daily rum rationing of Her Majesty's Royal Navy, until "black tot day" (July 30, 1970) when the tradition came to an end.

You can make it at home. Take 1 shot of rum, 3 shots of water (cold or boiling, depending on whether you want it hot or cold), add a squeeze of lime juice or sugar if you like (it was optional and depended on the ship captain's choice, sometimes they even added cinnamon).

Nisarg

 

[Henry]

BTW Henry - I don't believe the C&C rules come with low-impact dice. IIRC the box comes with the old-fashioned sharp-edged Gamescience dice with unmarked numbers, but they are not made of the old low-impact plastic. Just FYI.

Awww, Maaaan!

Oh, well, on the bright side, there's nothing standing in the way of me waiting to purchase the full rule books, now, either.

On the issue of CRs and the "Culture of Balance", I have to disagree. I'm a firm believer in status quo encounters, and CRs are there as a tool for the GM to work out what is an appropriate challenge for a party, to avoid mistakes and TPKing on the first encounter.

I'm the other way, myself - While I'm glad for a guideline, not every encounter I place will be surmountable - I'll even place IMPOSSIBLE encounters that can only be overcome by running away. It took a LONG time to get my players to think about those properly, but it was worth it, because they judge an encounter now by risk, instead of only by reward.