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

[Mauricio Pezzotta]

Non-human PCs; the power creep; the use of non-standard dice; most classes except the three original ones, the thief in particular; nine instead of three alignments; the higher level character; spells past 5th level; experience for defeating monsters; weapons causing different damages; most of the combat system; the non-unified saving throws; and the differing experience tables, as they don't make any real difference.

 

[Numion]

1) Incoherent rules
2) Monster stats
3) Artificial limits/restrictions (my group flat out refused to try 3E until I convinced them that this had been changed)
4) XP tables
5) Unbalanced player options (or, the whole ruleset was unbalanced)
6) Adversial tone
7) XP from treasure
8) Level limits
9) High-level advancement (benefits vs. xp required)
10) Unearthed arcana (well I liked it as a little munchkin )
11) Reverse AC
12) Garys prose
13) Wacky adventures
14) Initiative
15) Weapon vs. Armor
16) Cleric class
17) Turning me away from D&D

 

[green slime]

17) Turning me away from D&D

Yes, well.... Pity the rules of AD&D didn't quite succeed at that master plan. Enough €-trash playing as it is making all these unreasonable demands on my hobby.

 

[Numion]

Yes, well.... Pity the rules of AD&D didn't quite succeed at that master plan. Enough €-trash playing as it is making all these unreasonable demands on my hobby.

18) Elitist grognards

 

[Tewligan]

Awesome - thanks for the info, T. Foster!

 

[green slime]

18) Elitist grognards

Sorry, I'm more of a Johnny-come-lately.

 

[Storm Raven]

Yes, really. The matrices are pretty constant - the 'to hit' number goes up on a 1-for-1 basis along with the descending AC until it hits 20. The 'to hit' stays at 20 for 6 "counts" of AC, and then continues the 1-for-1 progression. THACO really was in common usage at the time, and it was easy to figure those AC's that the 20 'to hit' was good on.

That's why I said that they didn't follow a regular pattern at the margins. It looks like you agree with me. THAC0 wasn't incredibly useful as a result - most people just used the matrices since they were already available.

 

[Numion]

Sorry, I'm more of a Johnny-come-lately.

Apology accepted.

 

[Storm Raven]

DMG Preface, page 7-8.

I mean. You can say all you like, Storm Raven, but you can't make this quote any clearer, I think.

And the quote doesn't cover what I'm talking about. Perhaps if you read what I wrote, you'd understand that what you are citing is entirely inapplicable. You see, in most groups, it appears that the DMing slot rotated (as was true of the original groups headed up by Gygax himself). So that means, by necessity, that at most gaming tables, there would be numerous people at the table who had not only looked inside the DMG, but had actually read it and studied it. And they were even doing that in accord with the advice section you quoted. But what happened when they stopped DMing and someone else took over? I doubt that they had memory purging devices that would allow them to edit the information they knew out of their brains, so they were at the table as players, with the supposedly forbidden DMG knowledge in their heads. Somehow they were still able to play the game and enjoy it.

One could also point to the numerous play advice articles that appeared in the pages of Dragon in the 1e days that explicitly said that to be a good player, one should help the DM by knowing the rules, including the rules in the DMG. And the numerous articles in Dragon in which players were given advice concerning their character abilities that relied on information from the DMG. Several of those articles being written by the original core group of players, and some written by Gygax himself.

 

[Storm Raven]

What ever Storm Raven. Your logic is lacking: In the first place, when you first purchased these books (back in the 70s or early 80s) you didn't have the internet, and you didn't have a detailed history of the creation of D&D at your fingertips (perhaps a crystal ball?). All you new was what was written in the rule books.

Ah, the vanity of youth. No, we didn't have the internet. We had this very nice publication called Dragon and the large number of articles and editorials and letters written for it, many of which were penned by people with names like Gygax, Ward, Lakofka and so on and talked about how they played the game. We also had gaming conventions, where we could actually meet these people, and talk to them about what they thought of the game.

Second, the creators of the game (all of whom were in the original group) were all experianced players and DMs of this new game. They'd been at it for years...co-DMing and rotating was a necessity. Hell, they played in all sorts of ways to figure out the best way to design it. Then they wrote the rule books (the PH is for players the DMG for DMs). Period, end of story. When a player was ready to learn to be a DM he read it.

And? Was he ineligble to be a player after that point?

Now, Did Gygax intend you Storm Raven-player to one day don the DMs cap...sure, you bet. But until that day he wanted you to keep your nose out of the DMG and let the DM run the game while you sat back and enjoyed it. The game is at its best when you don't have everything memorized...it feels less like a game. Anyhow, If you don't believe me, why not ask the man himself, he posts around these parts. Or go read the intro for yourself.

And after you take a hand at DMing, are you saying the game doesn't work for you any more as a player? What if you start DMing right away and then later surrender the reins and become a "mere" player? Can you do that, is that allowed? Since a lot of groups didn't have an experienced DM, someone had to fill that slot. Does that make the game no fun? Are you supposed to edit your memory so you don't remember all that "forbidden knowledge" you aren't supposed to have?

Every person I saw who DMed came out of the experience enjoying the game more as a result. Not less. They took a hand at DMing, got more familiar with the game, and then when they went back to being a player, their enjoyment increased, not decreased. Every time. Knowing the rules, it seems, simply makes for a better play experience.