What I miss most

[teitan]

While I enjoyed 3e and think 4e will be quite fun when I get to play it something I did notice that makes me miss the old days is one simple thing. I miss the old XP charts and the speed of advancement from back in the day. I miss the idea that a group could play together for 10+ years and still be using the same characters and be in the middling levels. While you could easily cut XP to emulate the "good old days" advancement I don't think it would be as rewarding in the newer editions with their every 14 encounters/10 ecounters paradigm and how the classes work. I'm not saying this isn't fun, I've said I think 3.0 is the best iteration of D&D released not being a fan of the mentality of 3.5, but there is something not just nostalgic about those old characters, but also romantic and cool. I played the same character for 5 years and love that character more than any character I have played since. I still remember the elation of having gotten to level 6 after a little less than a year and playing weekly. Levels were something you earned and they didn't bring every other session to a halt or keep me up for hours after my bed time cause my players want to talk to me about prestige classes, multiclass options and feats while flipping through 20or so books and asking about every feat they see.

But then again, as a player there is something cool about getting a new power veer other session or so.

 

[joethelawyer]

While I enjoyed 3e and think 4e will be quite fun when I get to play it something I did notice that makes me miss the old days is one simple thing. I miss the old XP charts and the speed of advancement from back in the day. I miss the idea that a group could play together for 10+ years and still be using the same characters and be in the middling levels. While you could easily cut XP to emulate the "good old days" advancement I don't think it would be as rewarding in the newer editions with their every 14 encounters/10 ecounters paradigm and how the classes work. I'm not saying this isn't fun, I've said I think 3.0 is the best iteration of D&D released not being a fan of the mentality of 3.5, but there is something not just nostalgic about those old characters, but also romantic and cool. I played the same character for 5 years and love that character more than any character I have played since. I still remember the elation of having gotten to level 6 after a little less than a year and playing weekly. Levels were something you earned and they didn't bring every other session to a halt or keep me up for hours after my bed time cause my players want to talk to me about prestige classes, multiclass options and feats while flipping through 20or so books and asking about every feat they see.

But then again, as a player there is something cool about getting a new power veer other session or so.

play 3.0 and multiply the xp needed for each level by 10. outlaw all non-core feats and outlaw all prestige classes in your campaign. outlaw all non-core books from your campaign for all purposes.

thats what we did.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Never played anything before 2E, but I played 2E for a few years. What I miss most was the DM freedom and the speed of combat. Combat was stupid fast back during 2E.

 

[MerricB]

While I enjoyed 3e and think 4e will be quite fun when I get to play it something I did notice that makes me miss the old days is one simple thing. I miss the old XP charts and the speed of advancement from back in the day. I miss the idea that a group could play together for 10+ years and still be using the same characters and be in the middling levels.

I see this sentiment a bit, but I have to wonder at what "middling" levels are. It was pretty much expected that after a year of play, your PCs would hit 10th level, and that was high level for AD&D. After that, advancement would pretty much stop (and, to some extent, it was expected you'd retire your PCs). If you had a good DM, then you could continue playing for a while, of course.

Groups that didn't give XP for treasure were playing very much against the style of 1st edition AD&D and Basic D&D, where about 80% of XP was likely to come from treasure found.

Cheers!

 

[markkat]

While I enjoyed 3e and think 4e will be quite fun when I get to play it something I did notice that makes me miss the old days is one simple thing. I miss the old XP charts and the speed of advancement from back in the day. I miss the idea that a group could play together for 10+ years and still be using the same characters and be in the middling levels...

...But then again, as a player there is something cool about getting a new power veer other session or so.

Teitan, I think you might find both to your satisfaction in Wayfarers. It's shameless self promotion, I confess, but you hit on two key design factors I had in mind while working on it. I've always been a fan of measured advancement, and the skill point award system is pretty flexible. The GM can more or less control advancement at the rate he hands them out. There's no where near the amount of planning that goes into characters as in 3.5, but it's much more than rolling a HD. The game is OGL/SRD and leans heavy on some old school mechanics/aesthetics, so it'll feel familiar, but you'll find many meaningful differences upon close inspection.

Long before developing the game, our group played a 1E/2E based homebrew that gave more options at advancement, but still took things slow. We never did give treasure XP, though. Personally, I've always found the low to mid levels of any version of D&D to be the most enjoyable. I hate to be rushed through them!

IMHO a character should be a story more than a series of accomplishments/encounters. Good stories take time. Good characters take time. Anyway, the link is in my sig. (The PDF is free for about 3 more weeks.)

 

[justanobody]

I see this sentiment a bit, but I have to wonder at what "middling" levels are. It was pretty much expected that after a year of play, your PCs would hit 10th level, and that was high level for AD&D. After that, advancement would pretty much stop (and, to some extent, it was expected you'd retire your PCs). If you had a good DM, then you could continue playing for a while, of course.

Groups that didn't give XP for treasure were playing very much against the style of 1st edition AD&D and Basic D&D, where about 80% of XP was likely to come from treasure found.

Cheers!

Expected by who? How often do you play? How long do you play when you play? How do you play?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Expected by who? How often do you play? How long do you play when you play? How do you play?

I didn't exactly play 2E as written back during those days, but retiring the game sometime around level 10 was almost universal, and something that as a DM I was very strict about. Players generally favored retiring the game because the multiclass characters began to stop gaining levels, and as a DM, the game just worked better at lower levels.

I heard rumors of higher level AD&D games, but I'd never seen one when I was a player/DM.

 

[justanobody]

I didn't exactly play 2E as written back during those days, but retiring the game sometime around level 10 was almost universal, and something that as a DM I was very strict about. Players generally favored retiring the game because the multiclass characters began to stop gaining levels, and as a DM, the game just worked better at lower levels.

I heard rumors of higher level AD&D games, but I'd never seen one when I was a player/DM.

What does that have to do with getting to 10th level in just a years time?

 

[MerricB]

Expected by who? How often do you play? How long do you play when you play? How do you play?

Gary Gygax, 40-60 sessions per year. It's mentioned in an early issue of The Strategic Review, IIRC.

Cheers!

 

[T. Foster]

Gary Gygax, 40-60 sessions per year. It's mentioned in an early issue of The Strategic Review, IIRC.

Cheers!

Ah, but that article is about OD&D, and in the designer note articles around the development of AD&D one of the stated design goals was to slow down progression a bit, in order to increase the playable lifespan of the game. Gygax (or maybe Lawrence Schick, I don't remember which one actually wrote the specific article I'm thinking of) claimed that the most active groups were able to "exhaust" the possibilities of OD&D in about a year of play, and that it was hoped that with AD&D it would take more like 3-4 years for that to happen (which is, of course, funny when nowadays there are campaigns that have been going nonstop for 20+ years). So 6th level after a year of weekly play is probably about right for AD&D.