What DON'T you like about 1E AD&D?

[Valiant]

I don't think that many people in real life would have much trouble estimating whether they can climb a certain tree, and whether it's going to be easy or hard. It's not exactly rocket science.

Try it. Walk up to a half way decent climbing tree and guess how quickly you can do it, and how many times you have to restart. Then attempt. Most people find its not as easy as it looks. Yet, under stress people can sometimes do amazing things. There are plenty of stories of out of shape vacationers scrambling up trees to escape bears, trees they could never normally climb up...funny what a little adrenoline can do (of course some of those bears followed them up and it didn't end well). The bottom line is its very difficult to predict how difficult things are to do (esp. if they don't regularly do those things and its under stress). Thats why 3Es D20 resolution system (where the PC always knows his chance to do any base thing) doesn't seem exciting (or particularly realistic) to many players who have tried it.

 

[Fifth Element]

Try it. Walk up to a half way decent climbing tree and guess how quickly you can do it, and how many times you have to restart. Then attempt. Most people find its not as easy as it looks. Yet, under stress people can sometimes do amazing things. There are plenty of stories of out of shape vacationers scrambling up trees to escape bears, trees they could never normally climb up...funny what a little adrenoline can do (of course some of those bears followed them up and it didn't end well).

Okay, try facing down 12 wolves. It's probably not as easy as it looks either.

 

[Valiant]

Considering that the wolves can react and behave in unpredictable ways, while the tree is just there (for the most part), I think you have this reversed. Also, a high-level fighter will likely have ranks in Climb, so he's trained there, too, yes? Maybe it's just a bad example.

No a fighter kills with his sword all the time. A 12th level fighter knows he can probably take 12 wolves from experiance and the confidence in his training, the unpredictable nature of wolves could be a problem, but he's probably delt with them many times before. A 12th level fighter may have never climbed a tree in his life (or not for a good long time), espl. not under a stressful situation (where he's under attack). His ability to climb a tree might be no better then it was before he became a fighter (infact it may be worse, climbing trees takes a little practise, a lighter weight, and different muscles then swinging a sword and the other sorts of things fighters concentrate on). This would be the DMs call in AD&D. The point is AD&D makes it difficult for the player to know his exact chance, while 3E does the opposite. The former is IMO more realistic and exciting then the later.

Fith, I don't know what you mean by "ranks in climb" its not part of the AD&D system. This thread is about AD&D.

 

[Fifth Element]

Fith, I don't know what you mean by "ranks in climb" its not part of the AD&D system. This thread is about AD&D.

Ha! You got me. My bad.

 

[Hussar]

Valiant - a couple of points.

First off, this is the thread for people to say what they don't like about 1e. This is not the place to tout the strengths of the system. That you personally don't have these problems is not all that important.

Secondly, the idea that the norm was for groups to have a single DM and the players to be ignorant of the rules is so far from my experience that I wonder if it's fairly unique. Certainly the idea that a new DM should wait up to two years learning the ropes as it were from a more experienced DM was never true. After all, when 1e first came out, there weren't any experienced DM's for the most part. Who did the first DM's learn from? What wizened mystic inhabited the depths of your local FLGS to dispense the wisdom of the ages to these new DM's?

 

[messy]

allo

what i didn't like about 1e:

1. basically all the crunch.
2. contradictory and confusing rules.
3. gygax's pompous tone and adversarial outlook (mentioned by another poster).

messy

 

[Storm Raven]

Thats the outcome of every group that overplayed the game and eventually wanted variety, not a result of a rule or even advice in the DMG.

That was the outcome of most gaming groups. Including the original gaming group consisting of Gygax and his buddies. Arguing that during the design phase of the game they expected players to remain ignorant of the contents of the DMG simply ignores the fact that they didn't play the game that way at all.

Honestly, I don't think Gygax new how people would continue playing the game as long as they did. As players we weren't allowed to see the DMG until we were trained as DM (for me that was about 2 years before I saw the inside of the DMG). Even today 2 of our players who have never DMed (and have no desire to) have yet to read the DMG. And thats after 15 + years (yes they are wives).

Trained? You mean you couldn't buy your own DMG and start a campaign until someone gave you the go ahead? I must have missed that requirement.

Of course, it seems to me that your experience on this score is atypical given the responses on this thread and the poll concerning rotating DMs. And that still doesn't cover the fact that there were multiple DMs in your group, even if you had to go through some sort of weird apprenticeship system first. That means that you had, at some point, people who had read the DMG playing as players in a campaign. Does that mean that they were unable to have fun?

In any event, the freedom the DM has in OD&D and AD&D to have a player role what he wants when he wants (d20, d100, d6 etc. up down sideways, tables, no tables) based on his objective opinion of your chances (rather then some concrete rules) makes your ability to predict your outcome very difficult (even for the experianced DM/player) its his game not yours...the DM is in complete control.

I think there are two big problems with your argument in this paragraph. First, you seem to have mistaken the word "objective" for the word "subjective". Second, any DM who treated the game as "his" and not "his and the player's" usually (in my experience) ended up with a game that was solely his. As they had no players who were willing to play in his game. They all went to the next kids house, and he DMed a game that wasn't Calvinball.

Thats the brilliance of the game, it stays exciting because there aren't hard and fast rules for everything, not despite it. Thats something the creators of 3E didn't understand IMO.

Calvinball is not a feature, it is a bug. In my experience, and from what I have read here, and in early issues of Dragon, most people got tired of the vague arbitrary system elements in a hurry and came up with tens, or even hundreds of pages of house rules to fill in the gaps. Some entire game systems sprang up from attempts to fill in these gaps (for example, Rolemaster). Playing "mother may I" simply seems to have not appealed to a lot of people.

The only exception to this is the To Hit tables and some of the saves (vs. poison, magic etc.) which most of us have memorized...which sucks, but its still fun to play........anyhow, knowing your chances to hit an orc or some zero level gaurd in chain isn't the same as not knowing your chances to climb a tree suddenly to avoid wolves....there's no "role your climb" garbage with a stack of modifiers, its:

DM: "hey Joe, role this d100 to see if your dog food or not" .

Player (experianced DM): "What am I rolling for, are you considering I have a 14 strength and 14 dex; how much is this chain armor going to effect my chances, I'm 6th level so that will help me right? When I DM I'd factor that in....."

DM: "shut up and role, the wolves are closing in". When the player feels panic and can focus on playing rather then calculating you have a good game.

Actually, my experience is that the player feels annoyed. Apparently nothing concerning his character matters, not his ability scores, or his skills, or his equipment. He may as well not have a character, or spend any time worrying about what his character is like, because the DM will just make something up, and those things won't matter. The player, to a certain extent, may as well not be there. And probably would end up wondering why he is even bothering to make choices. Calvinball loses its allure quickly.

PS one other thing, the freedom to figure out odds by the DM on the fly makes for a much quicker and fluid game (and as I stated above unpredictable). This is all in stark contrast to 3E.

I got tired of Calvinball in about 1981. Just about everyone I knew who gamed did too.

 

[Voadam]

1 Ability score tables where only exceptional scores matter (exacerbated for exceptional strength).
2 Wierd categories for saving throws.
3 Different xp charts for different classes.
4 Lack of balance between classes.
5 Lack of balance between playable races.
6 Thief skills and multiple different ways of handling mechanics.
7 Demihuman class and level restrictions.
8 Random hp.
9 Small amount of hp gained by higher level advancement.
10 Common save or die effects (monster poison in particular).
11 Random ability score generation.
12 Class prerequisites.
13 Bonus xp for high ability scores.
14 Wierd follower for levels rules.
15 AC going down instead of up/THAC0.
16 Player sheet info (attacks and saves) being hidden in the DMG.
17 Obvious spell info hidden in the DMG.

 

[Particle_Man]

Am I the first one to complain about the sexist Strength restrictions on females vs. males?

I am somewhat surprised that this is not making more lists on this thread.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

1) Poor writing. Gygax's prose is florid, verbose and needlessly obscure. The tone is pompous and ridiculous.

Obscure? I suppose the rest is a matter of taste, but obscure? I found the books crystal-clear and I was 12. I strongly prefer Gygax to the textbook style of too many other games.

I can only think of two things I didn't like. Psionics was grossly unbalancing, and I dropped weapon vs armor type adjustments because they just took too much time, although I did like the idea of differentiating weapons.