D&D 5E What I Miss From 1st Ed

[Warunsun]

Consider the PHB...

I don't miss anything from first edition. Or second edition. Or third edition. Or revised third edition. Or fourth edition. The reason is I still have my books and can play the old editions anytime I can find enough people willing to do it. I am still happily Dungeon Mastering a fourth edition campaign--actually two campaigns. One campaign is winding down and the final session will be this Saturday. The other campaign is fairly young and the player characters are 4th level and it should continue throughout the summer.

When the higher-level campaign ends this weekend the group has decided to give Castles & Crusades a try. I personally have wanted to run a nostalgic retrograde first edition campaign for a long while--over 2 years. But I wasn't able to convince enough players to give it a fair go-around. Last month or so the Troll Lords had a great sale and I was able to talk folks into giving Castles & Crusades a try. While C&C is new to them it really isn't all that new. It is fairly compatible with first edition but a lot simpler at the same time. A few minor changes you can make in your head and you can run old AD&D adventures and use old AD&D supplements with it. I am pretty happy. It is both a new thing with some new ideas and a familiar old thing at the same time. I will have my nostalgic campaign. Several character are even using traditional multi-classing (1e/2e style). Fifth edition even has some commonality with C&C since 5E reflects a lot of older edition stuff.

The players wanted to play Forgotten Realms since we haven't used the world in a long time. We selected the time frame of AD&D Second Edition boxed sets and source-books for the Forgotten Realms campaign (post avatar crisis) and I will get a lot of use out of many of my older D&D materials. Plus I can also purchase PDFs at DnDClassics.com if I don't have the original source.

It is a good time to be a D&D fan. Nearly every edition printed in hard copies the last several years plus PDFs and many compatible games out there. And a new edition on the horizon.

The only thing Wizards could do better in my opinion is do Print-On-Demand copies of the core rulebooks for all the old editions through DnDClassics.com and sell the main PDFs for the ones still missing.

 

[billd91]

I miss armor-piercing weapons.

 

[Obryn]

It is also other things like trying to get damage in a range similar to the 4E role structure and things like everyclass having the same attack numbers a'la 4th ed. It is a bit more like 4E essentials I suppose. At least IMHO. In any even it is not like traditional D&D and by traditional I mean pre 4th ed.

I'm still honestly not seeing it. Hit points are substantially lower across the board, weapon damage is substantially lower (partly due to the lack of Daily or Encounter abilities), and bounded accuracy is a renunciation of both 3e and 4e's exploding numbers and a return to math similar - in theory - to 1e. It's pre-3e D&D whenever the d20 comes into play.

I'm also not seeing roles as such - there's certainly no "Defender" role unless you're paying a feat for it, the Rogue has a hard time dealing his purported "striker" damage, and it looks like the Wizard is back to largely blasting stuff again.

Believe me, I wish I saw more of 4e in Next. I'd love it. But apart from a few concepts here or there, it's much closer to 3e than it is to anything else - and closer to 1e than it is to 4e most of the time, too.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I *don't* miss inconsistent and irrational mechanics.

I *do* miss Gygaxian language, cartoons in the DMG, fun tables (potion miscibility, wandering prostitutes), and quirky magic items.

Luckily I have all my books still, but I do hope 5E inherits some of the flavor of 1E.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't miss anything from first edition. Or second edition. Or third edition. Or revised third edition. Or fourth edition. The reason is I still have my books and can play the old editions anytime I can find enough people willing to do it. I am still happily Dungeon Mastering a fourth edition campaign--actually two campaigns. One campaign is winding down and the final session will be this Saturday. The other campaign is fairly young and the player characters are 4th level and it should continue throughout the summer.

When the higher-level campaign ends this weekend the group has decided to give Castles & Crusades a try. I personally have wanted to run a nostalgic retrograde first edition campaign for a long while--over 2 years. But I wasn't able to convince enough players to give it a fair go-around. Last month or so the Troll Lords had a great sale and I was able to talk folks into giving Castles & Crusades a try. While C&C is new to them it really isn't all that new. It is fairly compatible with first edition but a lot simpler at the same time. A few minor changes you can make in your head and you can run old AD&D adventures and use old AD&D supplements with it. I am pretty happy. It is both a new thing with some new ideas and a familiar old thing at the same time. I will have my nostalgic campaign. Several character are even using traditional multi-classing (1e/2e style). Fifth edition even has some commonality with C&C since 5E reflects a lot of older edition stuff.

The players wanted to play Forgotten Realms since we haven't used the world in a long time. We selected the time frame of AD&D Second Edition boxed sets and source-books for the Forgotten Realms campaign (post avatar crisis) and I will get a lot of use out of many of my older D&D materials. Plus I can also purchase PDFs at DnDClassics.com if I don't have the original source.

It is a good time to be a D&D fan. Nearly every edition printed in hard copies the last several years plus PDFs and many compatible games out there. And a new edition on the horizon.

The only thing Wizards could do better in my opinion is do Print-On-Demand copies of the core rulebooks for all the old editions through DnDClassics.com and sell the main PDFs for the ones still missing.

Already bought C&C and have players for it. Getting everyone in the same room together is the problem atm due to RL timetables.

 

[howandwhy99]

I miss the game being magical and mysterious from the players points of view.

The Weapon vs. Armor Type rules.

No skill system. Especially now the default "check" system which refers to...? has become the core game rule.

Custom designs for whatever the players could express. Mechanics for the DM to integrate everything the players wanted into the game.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I *don't* miss inconsistent and irrational mechanics.

I *do* miss Gygaxian language, cartoons in the DMG, fun tables (potion miscibility, wandering prostitutes), and quirky magic items.

Luckily I have all my books still, but I do hope 5E inherits some of the flavor of 1E.

That's about how I feel about 1E. Great memories of the game, and I probably put more hours into 1E than any other edition, but it did have the inconsistent rules and odd mechanics.

The magic items and tables were fun, some of the little Gygaxian tidbits were fun - I still remember Gutboy Barrelhouse as a name, and 1e had some great flavor to it. I think a lot of the stuff that came out in later editions is missing that flavor.

 

[The Human Target]

Where people draw the line under "it's not the same game anymore" is fascinating.

 

[1of3]

Custom designs for whatever the players could express. Mechanics for the DM to integrate everything the players wanted into the game.

Now, I am confused. I understand that you can modify your game however you like. I do not understand how the game itself can provide a method to do so, nor do I understand why you can't do it with current iterations of the game.

 

[howandwhy99]

Now, I am confused. I understand that you can modify your game however you like. I do not understand how the game itself can provide a method to do so, nor do I understand why you can't do it with current iterations of the game.

That's true. You can customize the game with every iteration. Maybe we simply need to call it out in the DMG? How to build a new class? A new magic item? A new spell effect?