D&D 1E What makes a D&D game have a 1E feel?

[Tony Vargas]

So you’re not a FGG fan?

Still have my 1e books, so never felt the need to try it.

Or not a 1E fan?

Fan of 1e who examined it too closely over the years. Thing is, you can love something yet still be aware of it's faults.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Lowkey13 hits much of what I think as well. A lot of it is hard to capture the feel unless you were there back in the day to experience first hand while it was happening. I think that's at least half of it.

The other half is what people have been mentioning: focus on exploration, more grittiness and lethality, making stuff up or ignoring rules you didn't like, etc. It was also a time of individual creation, which I don't see much anymore. Every gaming table and DM I knew back in the day created their own adventures, regions, or even game worlds. Hardly anyone does that anymore. Also, it's not just the rules, but the aesthetic. I've used that tagline myself back in 2012 when I created Felk Mor, "Old school feel". But I also focused on the look. For example, here are some shots of maps and art from that superdungeon so you know exactly what I'm talking about:

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Less talk more fight!

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

So Frog God Games market their products as having a 1E feel. What to you makes a product have a 1E feel?

Is it the increased lethality? Is it a DM vs PC mentality? Is it forcing the players to think carefully about every action and situation, rather than relying on the abilities of their PCs to defeat encounters?

What to you gives the 1E feel to D&D games or products?

Most of the above. Maybe less "gonzo" styling too. In our last 5e game my monk did a 65 foot driving headbutt on a foe since I knew there is now way I could die from it. At worst I'd be at 0 and up in one round when I got hit with a quick spell and ready to go hard into action moments later. Its hard for me to not view the system as a mix of wuxia and loony tunes. 1e with lower HP and more negatives to being knocked to 0 or less it would never occur to me. You really don't need to plan as much, no emphasis on logistics, granted I know a lot of gamers don't want to worry about how they will carry a half ton of metal out of dungeon, and other things.

 

[Yaarel]

What makes D&D feel like 1e?

100% homebrew settings.

 

[Yaarel]

D&D 1e ...

... was more "free" in terms of genre conventions. While many tables had campaigns set in particular worlds, and, maybe, an overarching theme, for the most part it was a series of small adventures (you might even call them "modules"). It's like the difference between episodic television, and more modern "season long" narratives. Because of this, you could have adventurers doing all sorts of things- from exploring the underworld (D1-D3) to spaceships (Barrier Peaks) to Alice in Wonderland homages (EX1-2) to gothic horror (Strahd) to Egyptian-influenced desert crawls (Desert of Desolation) to Dinosaurs (Isle of Terror) all within the same campaign, not to mention crossing over the Gamma World. Because everything was less defined, it was also more free.

That possibility of freedom of setting also gave the players power to choose, to go anywhere, do anything. 1e is a game of imagination, where the DM and players work out each others thought experiments.

 

[Yaarel]

Graph paper.

Lots of it.

Yeah, lots of graph paper.

Because DMs are creating their own worlds of imagining anything.

Players use graph paper to customize their character sheets.

 

[Yaarel]

For me, it is:

Less focus on mechanics. Your choices and your roleplaying are more impactful than then the modifiers on a die roll.

That you can succeed at a task by describing what you are doing or how you are approaching a problem without needing a die roll.

Characters are an avatar for you to explore a fantasy world more so than a full persona.

An attitude of ‘dice fall where they may’ and an acceptance that not all encounters / traps / environments are fair or balanced. Save or die poison exists, accept it and move on.

Greater sense of lethality. You can lose your character if you make a poor choice.

In D&D 1e, narrative adjudication is − by far − more important than the mechanical resolution.

It is all about thought experiments. Dice are just for stabbing.

 

[Yaarel]

Less reliant on class abilities, more reliant on ingenuity to overcome obstacles...to get stuff.

Ingenuity to overcome obstacles!

 

[Yaarel]

Making stuff up or ignoring rules you didn't like, etc. It was also a time of individual creation, which I don't see much anymore. Every gaming table and DM I knew back in the day created their own adventures, regions, or even game worlds. Hardly anyone does that anymore.

DMs created their own worlds − often in response to where the players decided to go.