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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7335782" data-attributes="member: 82106">I was responding to the assertion that 1e, specifically, is a game where you play your chosen hero and have heroic type adventures (which I would characterize as having at least some elements which correspond with other genre where characters are considered 'heroes', which could be Super Hero Comics, Classic Mythology, Arthurian Legend, Classic Fantasy, Modern Fantasy, etc.). Does 1e actually deliver that? Well, in some ways it is hard to say what the dividing lines between 1e and the conventions of a table, variations of technique used by a DM, etc. exactly is, so its not ever going to be answered with perfect precision. I think we can all acknowledge that. So, my procedure was to actually examine the rules (from memory since I know them almost by heart) and draw from actual play experience, and then contrast that with the prefatory text (and I think its fair to say that other 'classic' D&D materials repeat quite similar texts too). TSR advertising, the D&D Cartoon, etc. all reinforce this idea of heroic play.However, the examination of the rules doesn't entirely bear out that this is how the rules work, or are intended to work when considered on their own. To answer your points a bit more specifically:While I never played with EGG as a GM I've played with a lot of GMs and players, some of whom actually DID play with Gygax and/or Arneson, or with Tim Kask or others of the original D&D groups. I know from this experience that characters were mercilessly slaughtered at low levels in these early games. That in fact the game, at least up to a point, was pretty much nothing but a skill gauntlet. To say that we were basically "doing it wrong" if we died 1 in 5 times is actually kind of hilarious. If you played with Gygax my informed guess is you'd be lucky to survive to 2nd level 1 in 5 times! This was no example of incompetence, these games were just LETHAL. Also I played in 1e tournaments in the late 70's up to the mid-80's. Tomb of Horror is EXACTLY the text of the earliest tournament module. Play it straight, there's basically a 0% chance of survival. This might not be what you'd play exactly in your home campaign (when published by TSR it basically advised DMs NOT to use it with characters anyone wanted to play again). Still, it was pretty typical stuff, and that's a very HIGH LEVEL module, it was MORE that way at low levels!Again, the 'D' modules are quite high level, assuming at least name level PCs, if not 11th and up. Play at high levels gets progressively more 'heroic' in at least some respects. Were this a module written for low level PCs it would likely also stress this kind of thing, but there would be little scope for heroic action. Instead the modus would necessarily be to establish bases and supply caches below ground and slowly and painstakingly explore, with heavy losses likely at regular intervals. Not really very 'heroic', though again it would be a fun game in its own right.I don't think you can reproduce 'Indiana Jones' using D&D's rules. Starting at level 1 you'd die often, which certainly doesn't match Indy. You could look at it as "well, he's the one character that didn't die", which is a fine meta-game way to look at it, but that doesn't address the non-heroicness of the EXPERIENCE of play leading up to the survival of 'Joe 5', which was the actuality of play if you pretty much ran the game 'by the book'. You could certainly create the temple in the jungle from the first movie, but you'd have to either run it as a high level adventure (in which case some of the later scenes don't work out coherently) or it would be an attrition operation where you'd probably lose 5 or 10 'archaeologists' in the process of traversing the trap gauntlet (even Indy lost a guide, though that guy was a traitor so it was a dramatic element than attrition). I do think there's room for skill tests and 'gauntlets', puzzles, etc. in a game that is fundamentally dramatic and scene-framed, they just originate from a bit different source than in Gygaxian origin play. D&D doesn't have any mechanics or tradition that leads to this sort of play. 4e does move into that realm and is quite usable for that, but I'm not sure that was 100% intentional, or at least it was intended only to be ONE possible mode of 4e play. My own game that I run, which is mostly based off 4e-style mechanics, does do it pretty well, and wouldn't really work at all for say a straight up sandbox, unless the GM was quite prepared for it to be open to reimagining by the players in some cases.</blockquote>

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