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

[Valiant]

I doubt very much the systems were designed to emulate reality, more likely they were a compilation of different rules and ideas from years of play that were never cohesive. It wasn't designed to be confusing... it was just confusing.

Thats possible. But regardless the effect they had was the same (ie. the DM being more free to determine outcomes, and the player being less sure of what will occur).

If you check out the tables you can see its very easy to reduce it to a d20 system (infact the tables seem to be based on just that). The tables kept the focus on play.

 

[Odhanan]

Say what now? The point of D&D is to do things that are impossible in real life, not to emulate things in real life. Casting fireball, for instance.

You're missing his point. I think he meant that it emulates reality better because of the uncertainty (and possible excitement) it creates on the player's part. It certainly is a valid argument.

 

[Pants]

You're missing his point. I think he meant that it emulates reality better because of the uncertainty (and possible excitement) it creates on the player's part. It certainly is a valid argument.

The uncertainty is in the die roll. You could roll low and fail or you could roll high and succeed.

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

-You had to use hit dice and your own judgment to try and figure out whether a monster would be too easy or too difficult;

I find using your own judgement a good thing. Something I've personally found in the play of the newer editions is that if it's all "balanced" so encounters are designed to take a certain percentage of the party resources, then it becomes a bit of a treadmill/grind rather than challenge or opportunity.

"Yes, you can kill it, you probably will, (it's a designed encounter for your level) so hit it and don't worry about thinking of alternative approaches." But then to me D&D 3e+has never been about non-combat, so I cold be wrong!

But this is a "What you don't like about 1st ed. AD&D" thread, and for me it would be DMG organisation and Psionics (we never used them).

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

1. Alignment system. I've come to prefer the earlier Law/Chaos/Neutral "cosmic sides" view of alignment.
2. Bonus inflation. This was really started with optional rules from OD&D Supplement I, but enshrined as canonical in AD&D.
3. Psionics. I don't object to the concept (especially for monsters), but didn't like the execution.
4. Unarmed combat rules. Another execution problem
5. NWPs. I don't like skill systems in D&D. Even if I did like skill systems, I wouldn't like NWPs.
6. Initiative. The by-the-book rules for this are needlessly complex/confusing, IMO.
7. Too many classes/power inflation. The UA-classes, weapon specialization, et cetera. I prefer a handful of broad archetypes.
8. Training rules. Tried 'em, never really liked 'em.

All that said, 1E AD&D is still one of my favorite games.

 

[Valiant]

The uncertainty is in the die roll. You could roll low and fail or you could roll high and succeed.

Thats true, there is some uncertainty but much much less then in real life (where we don't have a clue and are often completely off).

 

[BryonD]

I liked 1E.

I just like 3X a lot more.

 

[Odhanan]

The uncertainty is in the die roll. You could roll low and fail or you could roll high and succeed.

It's not the same thing to roll and know how the system works and roll while not knowing exactly how it works. Hence the advice in the First Ed's DMG to not let the players read it.

But please. PLEASE. This is NOT a thread for an edition war.

 

[Valiant]

Hence the advice in the First Ed's DMG to not let the players read it.


This is a point often missed here. As a game (what was intended by Gygax and co.) the DM is supposed to run it, the players cluelessly role (with only a marginal idea of their chances to do anything). Thats why you can take someone who's never played AD&D (but with knowledge of generic fantasy or fairy tales) and in 10 minutes have them playing as well as the experianced players (just keeping track of HPs and equipment).

 

[Storm Raven]

This is a point often missed here. As a game (what was intended by Gygax and co.) the DM is supposed to run it, the players cluelessly role (with only a marginal idea of their chances to do anything).

Actualy, that could not have been their intent, because that's clearly not how they played. All of the information we have concerning the early D&D campaigns played by Gygax and his friends indicates that they all pretty much took turns DMing. Which means that keeping the DMG some sort of sacred text never to be read by the players does not reflect how the game was developed, and couldn't work in practice either.

In my experience, rotating DMs was pretty much the norm for most D&D groups that I was involved with, which is a practice that pretty much makes this supposed intent completely unworkable.