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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jacksonmalloy" data-source="post: 6260838" data-attributes="member: 6696350">Thanks for the welcome!I read through the Primer, and I can at least agree that it does capture a lot of what I remember playing back in the day. The weird paradox is that I remember D&D as being simple and rules light, even though there are literally dozens of books of rules and tables and things. In hindsight, this was because I never met anyone back then  who actually used any of the rules except for combat and advancement. I'm not sure if that's great, or something that indicates poor design. But the primers definitions do paint me into a very specific corner, and its one that I'm not necessarily wanting to sit in.  I rather liked the idea of player skill vs character sheets, but one of the nicer trends in the last decade of RPG development is the idea that characters can excel in other areas than combat. Social skills are a good example of this. In d&d, at least, this was basically handled by pure role play, which is great (but also why Charisma has long been a dump stat). Or at least it's great until you have someone who wants to be something they aren't in real life. It's easy for the most charming and charismatic person in real life to play down to a gruff and off putting 8cha. Likewise, its easy to play down to the 'dumb barbarian' but there isn't a person alive who can convincingly role play a character who is ultimately, demonstrably smarter or more charismatic than they are. This is where having the sheet/stats matter in 'modern' games. It gives me the freedom to play a character who doesn't follow my own natural strengths and weaknesses and not be hamstrung. Is there a balance here that can be struck between 'relying on the sheet' and being able to emulate abilities that the players themselves do not have? Another impression that I seem to recall is that early D&D seemed to make the characters.. special? By being a first level fighter, you weren't impressive by gamer standards, but you were already a cut above the world at large. The rest of the world was effectively level 0. I remember my.. horror.. realizing that in 3.x you had to sit down and work out things like 5th level merchants and a 7th level 'specialist', etc etc. I distinctly remember seeing some NPC in an adventure book that was a multi-classed something or other along the lines of 3 levels of specialist, 4 levels of fighter, and 1 level of rogue. I could read no further. This lead to a running gag wherein we would, in casual conversation, proclaim what levels we took in what by way of explanation (at one point, an exceptionally good waitress was decided to have been at least a 10th level waitress, and that was before the discussion on her charisma stat). The other thing that stands out to me is that the players didn't actually have to know how to play the game when they started. The game was simple enough and narrative enough that as long as the DM understood the rules, the players just described what they wanted to do, and the DM could call for a roll as appropriate. This is a stark contrast to games where the players need to know and understand all of the options and special abilities before they can meaningfully interact with the system. I can't comment on early runequest. The only version I've read is 6th, and I haven't actually played it. Though, now I kind of want to find a 1e version. Any ideas where to find it?Do my observations thus far stack up with your own? How do they differ?</blockquote>

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