D&D General Why TSR-era D&D Will Always Be D&D

[Orius]

Okay, a big one is XP. Specifically XP for treasure. Until 2e, treasure was the biggest source of XP, the general rule of thumb was that 1 gp found and recovered awarded 1 XP, usually once you got back to your home base. 1e also had XP values for magic items that were found and used, or you could sell the item and get the money XP as normal. Anyway, fights were something to be avoided because they weren't as rewarding, but had a lot of risk. This was especially the case with random encounters, because they had little treasure, could hurt the party a good deal, and their purpose was to keep the players from tarrying too much or adventuring carelessly.

Now 2e shifted to making the rule optional. The DM was given several options for awarding XP. But XP for monsters was the easiest and eventually became sort of a default. So instead of avoiding encounters because of their risk factor, players became more willing to fight. And the increased focus on combat became more pronounced.

Anyway the rules shift isn't too big, but they way players approach the game is.

 

[Mort]

Anyway the rules shift isn't too big, but they way players approach the game is.

I'd argue that ANY rules change that completely
alters the way players approach the game is HUGE.







.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

*People I played with started cutting up their power list and putting them into card sleeves. I'm not saying it was bad design, just how we played.

And, yet, funnily enough, I've recently started watching Epic NPC Man D&D from Viva La Dirt League. I don't usually watch live plays, but, this one caught my eye and I've gotten tucked into it. I'll just put a link here and you can notice, right there in front of every player, is a bunch of cards detailing their spells and powers and whatnot. And they all started playing D&D with 5e.

Huh.

 

[Oofta]

And, yet, funnily enough, I've recently started watching Epic NPC Man D&D from Viva La Dirt League. I don't usually watch live plays, but, this one caught my eye and I've gotten tucked into it. I'll just put a link here and you can notice, right there in front of every player, is a bunch of cards detailing their spells and powers and whatnot. And they all started playing D&D with 5e.

Huh.

You can do that with 5E, for some classes it makes sense. We had spell cards back in ... some pre-4E edition but my memory is blurry. But there's no reason to have cards for a non-casting fighter, rogue, barbarian. Even then it's not the same. You could have the info for fireball on a card but you don't flip it over after it's used, it's not an encounter power. There are a handful of abilities that refresh based on a short or long rest (i.e. fighter's second wind or action surge) or classes built around a pool of resources that get recovered (i.e. monk's ki points).

But most of the things classes do in 5E are not limited that way and different classes have far more variety in execution of how it works. There's always been some level of limited resource and recovery in D&D for some classes, in TSR D&D it was spells. They've expanded a bit on that for other classes and added in the short rest concept from 4E. They didn't make it the chassis for every class.

BTW I'm not saying AEDU was inherently bad, that's a matter of preference.

 

[Hex08]

Okay, a big one is XP. Specifically XP for treasure. Until 2e, treasure was the biggest source of XP, the general rule of thumb was that 1 gp found and recovered awarded 1 XP, usually once you got back to your home base. 1e also had XP values for magic items that were found and used, or you could sell the item and get the money XP as normal. Anyway, fights were something to be avoided because they weren't as rewarding, but had a lot of risk. This was especially the case with random encounters, because they had little treasure, could hurt the party a good deal, and their purpose was to keep the players from tarrying too much or adventuring carelessly.

Now 2e shifted to making the rule optional. The DM was given several options for awarding XP. But XP for monsters was the easiest and eventually became sort of a default. So instead of avoiding encounters because of their risk factor, players became more willing to fight. And the increased focus on combat became more pronounced.

Anyway the rules shift isn't too big, but they way players approach the game is.

Maybe it was because of my age but when I was playing 1E fights weren't something to be avoided, as a kid it was most of the fun of the game. Yes, there was a lot of risk and fatalities were more common than now but if I avoided fights I probably wouldn't have discovered much treasure or had as much fun.

 

[Orius]

Yeah it could have been age, kids getting more of a thrill from fighting monsters not fully understanding the whole risk/reward aspect or something similar.

Though the big treasure hauls tended to be guarded, so you'd have to fight to get it. As I said it was the random encounters one wanted to avoid since they had comparatively little treasure. That's the way the treasure tables were set up.

 

[Oofta]

We never used gold for XP. Then again it took forever to get to higher levels.

As far as avoiding fights? Why would we avoid fights? That was the whole reason we were there!

 

[MichaelSomething]

Yeah it could have been age, kids getting more of a thrill from fighting monsters not fully understanding the whole risk/reward aspect or something similar.

Though the big treasure hauls tended to be guarded, so you'd have to fight to get it. As I said it was the random encounters one wanted to avoid since they had comparatively little treasure. That's the way the treasure tables were set up.

I thought the whole point of TSR D&D was DYI??? People cared about treasure tables as much as race as class, gold for XP, and gender based stat penalties.

 

[Minigiant]

Maybe it was because of my age but when I was playing 1E fights weren't something to be avoided, as a kid it was most of the fun of the game. Yes, there was a lot of risk and fatalities were more common than now but if I avoided fights I probably wouldn't have discovered much treasure of had as much fun.

In think it's less about age and more that D&D is advertised by the publishers and fans as a butt whooping, monster slaying adventure. You told me I can create this strong kick butt fighter and you expect me to run away from fights?

I know that's how my friends got me to come to a session.

So it's no wonder that D&D went from TSR Gold as XP to WOTC monsters as XP to Houserule Encounter as XP.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In think it's less about age and more that D&D is advertised by the publishers and fans as a butt whooping, monster slaying adventure. You told me I can create this strong kick butt fighter and you expect me to run away from fights?

This is why OD&D had drift almost immediately about how people played it over how, to some degree, it was supposedly intended to be played. If you want people to play something as a fantasy heist movie where by the time you're in a fight you're probably already in at least a partial failure state, you don't use examples of characters who are in fights regularly from fiction to sell it (and yes, a few of them would end run fights when they could, but for all the fact Conan could be a sneaky bastard, he found more than just few times when it was time to kill a fool). If your example sources are almost never about what you apparently think your game is about, don't be surprised if you play populace plays to the examples.

(Made even more true because your mechanics don't actually make succeeding at what you think the game is about at all easy. Those mechanics are almost all about how to kill a fool).