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

[Valiant]

What was missing most from the DMG (and AD&D) were good examples of combat that spell things out. Many of the rules aren't as bad as people think once understood and actually used.

 

[SuStel]

[The Players Handbook] is much more coordinated and organized. The DMG wound up being in part a catch-all for a lot of other material including (as has been established) stuff that he, even as the author, neither needed or used.

It's funny you should say that. If you study the tables of contents of the two books, you'll notice that the DMG is written to mirror the PH.

 

[SuStel]

Character sheets from the time had space devoted to your character's saving throws and target hit numbers.

Character sheets aren't rules.

The first time I ever fought a goblin, I had no player skill. I was 8 years old and probably playing my first ever game of D&D.

And you had the more exciting time for it. After you fought that goblin, you had a better idea of what kind of power your character had, and you never had to look at a table.

 

[SuStel]

Yet somehow a game between skilled gamblers is exciting, even though the rules and probabilities are out in the open.

There's a lot more to excitement in a role-playing game than probability. Gambling is abstract. RPGs put you in the middle of a situation as if you were there. This is what made RPGs so successful.

No, the element necessary for suspense is hidden information. Simply hiding some specifics of the encounter is all that is really necessary.

There's also more to RPG excitement than suspense.

In any case, no one is saying you can't have an exciting game if you know all the rules. It's simply that learning how to excel at the game is, in itself, exciting, and one of the reasons why RPGs were so successful.

My wizard is very likely to know how water and lightning interact. As a player, I ask my DM to interrogate my character's brain on my behalf. Or I can look it up. Which is the better choice depends on how much DM tolerance has for fielding a potentially endless stream of questions.

This was not the philosophy behind AD&D when it was written. Gygax and company often spoke about skilled players (see, for instance, Role Playing Mastery). Part of this was about learning how these game elements work by playing the game, not by reading the rulebook or having the referee tell you.

 

[Spatula]

Character sheets aren't rules.

No, they are player aids containing pertinent information to running your character. Such as ability scores, equipments, AC, saving throws, and to-hit tables.

And you had the more exciting time for it. After you fought that goblin, you had a better idea of what kind of power your character had, and you never had to look at a table.

Wow, you were gaming with me when I was in grade school? I had no idea!

 

[prosfilaes]

And you had the more exciting time for it. After you fought that goblin, you had a better idea of what kind of power your character had, and you never had to look at a table.

Can we go back to the topic, which is not "Oh yes 1E AD&D was really so great" but "What DON'T you like about 1E AD&D?"?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It's funny you should say that. If you study the tables of contents of the two books, you'll notice that the DMG is written to mirror the PH.

But the rules it is presenting are largely peripheral to the more central ideas presented in the PH. The information thus bounces around quite randomly from topic to topic - even though it may be organized under the same headings as the PH. Given the potpourri of information it would probably have been better to try organizing it according to some logical pattern of its own rather than mirror the PH. As long as you retain all the running commentary on all those subjects that Gygax wrote I'd think you could achieve better organization without losing the "flavor" that everyone loves about it. But that's a job for an EDITOR.

 

[Voadam]

THACO is 2E, not 1E.

Appendix E of the 1e DMG has the stats for each of the MM monsters, including an entry for 'To Hit Armor Class 0'. A bunch of 1e modules use THAC0 in the stat blocks.

 

[Tewligan]

Really? Let's see, just flipping my 1e DMG open to Appendix E, let's look at, say, the ogre mage.

Size L, THAC0 15, AC 4, HD 5+2, # Attacks 1, Damage 1-12, Special Attacks magic & spell use, Special Defenses regeneration, Int avg. to excep., xp value 900 + 6/hp

That's pretty bare bones if you ask me. Vague too. There's a reason that the MM usually had at least a couple paragraphs detailing each entry.

Well, certainly it's not as detailed as the MM entry. However, it does tell the curious player that the creature has only one attack, the range of damage of that attack, the monster's AC, it uses magic, it can regenerate, and just how much xp it'll crap out if they kill it. That's a fair amount of info, wouldn't you agree?

 

[Storm Raven]

Well, certainly it's not as detailed as the MM entry. However, it does tell the curious player that the creature has only one attack, the range of damage of that attack, the monster's AC, it uses magic, it can regenerate, and just how much xp it'll crap out if they kill it. That's a fair amount of info, wouldn't you agree?

Not really. Does that entry really give any kind of idea of what an ogre magi is like as an opponent? All of the important stuff is so vague as to be useless. What spells? What magic? How much regeneration? Does it use 1st level spells, like faerie fire? or can it blast you with a cone of cold? I'd say the difference is pretty important, and it is nowhere given in the DMG listing. The reality is if an ogre magic is hitting you with a melee attack, you've already won the encounter, because all of their power is in what is not detailed in that entry.

I suppose if this were a goblin's entry, then what is given might be sufficient (and it would still be pretty bare bones), but then again, goblin's are pretty obvious to begin with (as are most of the monsters you could figure out from the bare bones stat block given in the DMG).