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

[Greylock]

First formalized in the 2e books, at any rate. I believe that THACO was in fairly common usage during 1e, though.

I never played 2nd Edition, only AD&D 1st, but my group always referenced THAC0.

Just giving you a bit of anecdotal evidence in support.

hth

 

[Numion]

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.

I agree with Storm Raven. The sense of wonder and excitement in playing D&D comes from the encounters and interactions you have within the fantasy world. The stuff that a DM makes up: interesting plots, locales, enemies, friends, traps, treasures, combats etc..

If the exciting thing is "What rule the DM is going to pull out of his hat this time?" instead of "What creature is making the noises behind the next door? / Wait a second, one of the coins the Mayor paid us with bears the mark of Thay, how is that possible? / Who or what made all these statues and why? / etc.." it sounds just like cheap thrills.

In any case if a DM needs that kind of tricks to excite the players, I don't think he's doing a great job.

 

[Voadam]

Not to nitpick, but I just wanted to comment on a couple of these:

I always found that ability checks (rolling equal to or under strength, for example) were fairly common in gameplay. In that case, an 11 certainly is better than a 10!

With nonweapon proficiencies (introduced in OA, DSG and WSG), house rules, and certain module specific situations it could matter. Under core rules, the DMG background professions, or simple DM ad hoc adjudication not using an ability check mechanic, not so much.

There were different xp charts BECAUSE the classes weren't perfectly balanced. Classes that were by level weaker than another class advanced faster - a thief is generally at least 1 level higher than an m-u with the same amount of xp.

With the same amount of xp Thieves generally advance quicker, although MU's had a wierd advancement chart where at the midpoint for levels they zoom up levels quicker than at other points. It was a poor balancing mechanic IMO.

No 1e module I saw was designed around certain xp amounts but always for certain levels. The pregenerated PCs did not give more levels to thieves than to others that I remember. They usually balanced the sample characters by magic items, hp, and good ability scores for lower level characters vs the higher level ones and had multiclass characters lower level than the higher level ones.

Makes sense, though - wouldn't a thief who's extra nimble, or an exceptionally intelligent m-u be more likely to be a quicker study than his clumsier/dumber counterpart?

I'd disagree. How much practice improves you should not be tied to raw ability IMO. High strength does not indicate superior fighter learning ability to me. If anything intelligence across the board might debatably be applicable as an appropriate attribute tied to learning and improving from experience, but not other ability scores.

Most spell info is in the PHB - the info in the DMG is clarification and/or adjudication advice for difficult/abusable spells. Also, remember that the DMG came out a year after the PHB - some of the info could be considered errata.

Some were for special situations such as using them underwater but others were just hidden aspects that I thought should not have been hidden. E.g. Detect Magic in the DMG allowed more info in general IIRC.

Okay, that's all I've got. I know this thread is specifically about what you don't like about 1e - I just couldn't resist the urge to defend the ol' girl on a couple of points!

That being said, the rules for surprise, psionics, and the DMG version of unarmed combat sucked really, REALLY bad.

 

[Valiant]

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.

.

Dragon is not part of the core rules. The DMG says the player sticks to the PH.

 

[Storm Raven]

Dragon is not part of the core rules. The DMG says the player sticks to the PH.

No it isn't. But then again, in those days no one was as rabid about what was "core" and what wasn't. In point of fact, someone making an argument about "core" would likely have been laughed at, loudly - house ruling was not only accepted, it was expected.

However, that's beside the point. You said before the internet we poor benighted fools playing 1e had no way of knowing how Gygax and his crew played D&D. You were wrong. We had Dragon, we had conventions. We got information from those sources concerning their games, how they played, and so on. Which has nothing to do with whether Dragon is core or not.

And you still haven't even bothered to address the fact that in most groups, it appears that DMing duties rotated. So even if "players" stick to the PHB, there will be several people at the table who have studied the inside of the DMG, "legitimately" under the "core rules" because of their prior stint(s) as DM. If the rules are designed to give a good play experience only if you are ignorant of the rules in the DMG, then they shouldn't have been having any fun as players.

But the opposite appears to have been true - almost univerally, people who had DMed and/or had simply seen the inside of the "magical, wondrous, forbidden" DMG enjoyed the game more, not less. Which runs counter to your assertion that the game is more fun when you are playing Calvinball. And since this is the way we know that Gygax and his compatriots played, we know that the game wasn't developed with the idea that players should stay out of the DMG at all costs in order to enjoy the game. because it seems like most of Gygax and his buddies somehow had lots of fun playing the game even though they all knew the material that would end up being the contents of that book.

 

[Hussar]

SR makes a good point. The entire idea of "core" is a creature of 3e. There was no "core" prior to that. In fact, Dragon actually stated more than once that the rules contained therein were 100% official and were expected to be used.

 

[Imp]

The number one integral thing I don't like about AD&D is the way attributes work. They're inconsistent, confusing, they're mean, they cause all sorts of gyrations in gameplay. Much much prefer 3e stats.

Multiclassing/ dual-classing is a second, but not as pervasive.

Most of the other stuff that's been mentioned – XP/treasure, weapon speeds, NWPs (which I like, as I like skills in 3e), training times/costs, psionics, unarmed combat, these can be easily ignored or routed around if they annoy you, so I think they're pretty superficial annoyances, even if some of 'em are real boners.

 

[SuStel]

And you still haven't even bothered to address the fact that in most groups, it appears that DMing duties rotated.

Who are these "most groups" of which you speak? Do you have anything besides your own assumption to back that up?

"Most groups" I knew had exactly one referee who ran whatever game was being played.

 

[Valiant]

Storm, I think were coming from different places. We only had the 3 core books for 3 or 4 years (making our own dungeons) and we didn't mess with reading Dragon, nor have I ever attended a GEN CON. I imagine most players were like me (the average D&D player in 79-81) you may have been more hard core. We just couldn't afford stuff like that. We had 1 set of books between us for several years.

BTW did Gygax (or anyone from TSR) actually suggest starting players read the DMG (unless of course they were training as DMs)? If so thats news to me.

 

[Storm Raven]

Who are these "most groups" of which you speak? Do you have anything besides your own assumption to back that up?

Among other things, there was a poll here on that very subject within the last week, and the "rotating DMs" option beat the "only one DM" option by about three or four to one.