What I like about D&D 1,2,3 and how it influenced my houserules

[Raven Crowking]

Then why in the world do you list it with 1e bits?

Because I am using it to recapture something that is otherwise lost from 1e. If you look at the rules sections of 1e vs. 3e, 3e IMHO clearly wins. However, 3e game play bogs down in ways 1e (or 2e) did not. Removing those bogging down elements brings the game closer to what (for me) is the Core D&D Experience. Yet, at the same time, I want to do so in a way that works with 3e's elegant mechanics and PC design.

1e gave PCs a lot more hit points than many of the monsters they would encounter, and made the moster base damage fairly low (as MerricB charted, and I amended on another thread...not sure which offhand). Monster special abilities were scary; mooks you could cut through. I wanted to restore that feel with my houserules. The feel is the 1e element that is important.

In 1e, an average D&D session of six hours would include dozens of encounters, so that the game focused more on exploration.

 

[Mark CMG]

As I said elsewhere, what my games see as the inspiration/resource from the various editions is:

1e (and BECM): The adventures
2e: The settings
3e: The rules.

I see little of value rules-wise from prior editions that wasn't retained in the 3e rules already.

Has this proven out for you (and others)? Has this carried over to the new edition? How about other lines of RPGs like GURPS, Vampire (any others?) and such, have they evolved similarly over time?

 

[Lanefan]

A system for magic item creation that allows PCs to participate.

This one's where you lose me. PCs should not be making items (except maybe for basic potions and scrolls), they should be finding them as a side-effect of adventuring.

1e: Speed of play (streamlined combat, wound/vitality system means that riffraff fall quickly)

A whole long time ago we put a rough equivalent of a wound-vitality system into our 1e. It took Star Wars many years to catch up with us.

return of the electrum piece.

If you really want to mess 'em up, go to a variant on the old British coinage system:

12 pennies (c.p.) to the shilling (s.p.)
10 shillings (s.p.) to the crown* (e.p.)
20 shillings (s.p.) to the pound (g.p.)
5 pounds (g.p.) to the sovereign* (p.p.)

* - not the actual values.

Lan-"decimals are boring"-efan

 

[ExploderWizard]

I see little of value rules-wise from prior editions that wasn't retained in the 3e rules already.

There are some biggies for me:

Spell declaration/ turn based initiative is source of the majority of the overpowered caster claims. Magic being a risky proposistion in the midst of combat was a valuable check on its power that 3E could benefit from.

Item crafting/Wealth by level- Another contributor to the overpowering of casters and the most proximate cause of thieves feeling like linkboys. Cheap and plentiful wands and scrolls turned what were once valuable magical resources into common gumball machine toys. The sense of entitlement to gear by level took the fun right out of treasure and turned the whole affair into a big mess requiring the DM to make certain every kid had an equal sized piece of birthday cake or the kicking and screaming began.

The concept of reaching name level, building strongholds and attracting followers. Levels 1-20 played pretty much the same except the special effects budget got bigger as did all the numbers.

 

[Raven Crowking]

This one's where you lose me. PCs should not be making items (except maybe for basic potions and scrolls), they should be finding them as a side-effect of adventuring.

That's mostly so in my new ruleset, but not entirely so. However, most item creation requires research now, and a ritual to perform, possibly including rare ingredients, etc., and not guaranteed to succeed.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

This is just an attempt to explain what I wanted to capture in my home game. I've played D&D under various incarnations, from the Holmes blue box, through basic/expert, 1e, 2e, 3e, and 3.5e. In addition, I've played other rpgs (such as Traveller, Paranoia, FASA Doctor Who and Star Trek, Gamma World, Villians & Vigilantes, etc., etc.).

In order to get the D&D I wanted, I needed to get what I thought was best out of each of the editions I've played.

3e/3.5e: Simply unified mechanic. The ability to stat out just about anything, and the ability to create diverse and unique character types. Skills and feats (expanded to include weapon skills). Monsters divided by types, with each type having shared overarching qualities (actually expanded on this). A system for magic item creation that allows PCs to participate. NPC classes. Prestige classes.

2e: Specialty priests and specialty wizards (solved using the prestige class system from 3e/3.5e), detailed setting, options that describe culture and racial type (kits in 2e, racial levels taken from Arcana Unearthed and class limits by race in my houserules), interesting equipment options (solved by expanding equipment lists).

1e: Speed of play (streamlined combat, wound/vitality system means that riffraff fall quickly), smaller stat blocks (streamlined monsters, largely removing the mechanical "grace" of 3e monster development for the more intuitive 1e method), advice to players, names and feel of some spells, weapon speed (simple bonus system based on Very Slow, Slow, Normal, Fast, and Very Fast weapons), return of the electrum piece.

As a side note, the original post was from 2007, before I was considering an OGL varient, and many of the ideas that I am using in RCFG were initially playtested with these varient d20 rules.

Some changes:

* Feats and prestige classes are dumped, although some classes get feat-like abilities specific to those classes.

In actual play, the ever-expanding lists of feats meant that it was a PITA to set up encounters for the GM. I could do some really cool things, but it was far too much work for something that lasts 2-3 rounds!

And, the cool thing is, without doing all that work, I can still have the same effect in game.

In addition, the abilities granted by d20 System feats can be used as a form of treasure.

* System allows for the use of 2e kits with very little work required, or 3e prestige classes (in various ways) with a bit more work.

* Specialty priests are now modifications of the cleric class.

* Racial stuff has gone the way of Feats and Prestige classes. Too much extra work for too little bang, too easy to include in other ways.

* Wounds/Vitality is gone, but all PCs have an amount of damage they can "Shake Off" by resting. Damage that remains after "Shaking it Off" cannot be shaken off by resting longer.

* I didn't list exponential advancement (to slow reaching higher levels), but it is an important design consideration.

* The Weapon Speed system works very well in combat, and causes players to try weapons that aren't necessarily just the most damaging ones.


RC

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

If you really want to mess 'em up, go to a variant on the old British coinage system:

12 pennies (c.p.) to the shilling (s.p.)
10 shillings (s.p.) to the crown* (e.p.)
20 shillings (s.p.) to the pound (g.p.)
5 pounds (g.p.) to the sovereign* (p.p.)

* - not the actual values.

You could just use the real value of a crown - 5 shillings.

Old British coinage used to have a half-crown coin (i.e. two shillings and sixpence) - which was one of my favourites as a kid. I also used to like three penny coins which were small but chunky copper coins with 12 sides. (Sorry, that's completely off-topic, but I sometimes get a bit nostalgic.)

You can further confuse players by quoting prices in "guineas" - a guinea being one pound and one shilling.

 

[Ariosto]

A system for magic item creation that allows PCs to participate.

How is that different from 1st ed. AD&D? Or am I mistaken in inferring the distinction?

"A system" I can see, as the 1st DMG leaves details up to the DM (so that players must really discover any system that may indeed underlie the processes, apart from the game-mechanical data that could be read in that volume).

What I am curious about is the "allows PCs to participate" part. Obviously, 1st ed. literally does that. Playing a wizard or cleric, I can undertake the creation of magic items, even unto devising things never before known. So, I wonder whether this is meant to highlight some sort of additional participation?

 

[the Jester]

Ha! This is a fun game, especially given how I've been working on my own homebrewed system pretty hard lately.

I'll break it down from OD&D to 4e for my system-

OD&D: No ability bonuses, the dungeon as mythic underworld
BECMI: Fast gameplay, low hit points, everyone starts at 1st level, simple turn-based initiative
1e: XP for GP (sort of), an orc with 4 hp is worth more xp than an orc with 3 hp, dead at -10, xp bonus for high stats, slow advancement, secondary skills
2e: Ability checks, specialty priests/wizards
3e: Modular character/monster building, base attack values, prestige classes
4e: At will spells, exception based design for monsters, 'save ends', 4 defenses

 

[Raven Crowking]

How is that different from 1st ed. AD&D? Or am I mistaken in inferring the distinction?

The differences are:

1. Minor magic can be created earlier, in the form of stored spell energy (runes, potions, scrolls, and others).

2. It is explicitly called out in the Player's Guide, rather than being hidden in the Game Master's Handbook.

3. A specific form is given both to research and rituals. Specifically, the player performing the research devises a general plan for what should be required, which the GM then modifies. This puts the bulk of the work where it should be, IMHO, and is similar to spell research in earlier editions. There are also dangers inherent in such research.


RC