The DMG has this table for NPCs hit points. I would classify peasants as farmers and thus as "laboring".
TSR Why would anyone want to play 1e?
- Thread starter Sacrosanct
- Start date
Sacrosanct
Legend
nvrmind, posted above answers that
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
I think the implied worldbuilding is roughly:
Humans out-reproduce elves, dwarves, and other more long-lived and theoretically more powerful species. And humans out-organize more numerous species like orcs and goblins. In addition to being more ambitious and heroic (capable of advancement to higher levels) than either.
AD&D borrows from Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions that civilization and humanity benefit from Law, being better organized, more stable and mutually-supporting than the peoples of Chaos. You can see this mechanized in the Henchman and Hireling rules in the 1E DMG, for example, where Lawful alignments and good treatment of followers give substantial loyalty and morale bonuses. Evil and chaos contain the seeds of their own downfall, fighting amongst themselves and not having long term stability of leadership, even under a powerful overlord.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I don't know about birth rates- it's mentioned from time to time that Dwarves and Elves have lower birth rates (though in the Forgotten Realms, at least, this was rectified with the Thunder Blessing when Moradin gave Dwarven mothers a large number of twin births).
If a Chaotic culture is problematic, 1e Halflings (who don't seem to have any fertility problems) and Dwarves are typically Lawful Good.
Plus, well, if some peoples should be rarer than others, it's funny that the PHB doesn't address this. Elven and Half-Elven PC's especially are pretty popular choices (although that is going off of anecdotal evidence, when my games used to be flush with them before playing more exotic characters became a more accepted practice).
It always felt to me that the reason for D&D to be human-centric basically came down to "because we said it is". You could easily come up with reasons why another culture was more influential, like Earthdawn's Dwarves, whose civilization survived the Scourge with the best infrastructure, and being merchants and craftsman, were the first to travel far and wide to explore the world and find trade routes- to the point that the "common tongue" of Earthdawn is Dwarven!
And if a DM is fine with the status quo, that's fine, obviously, it's easier to describe human cities and culture to fellow humans after all. But for most campaigns, the reasons why this is the status quo seem quite arbitrary and manufactured.
BornHeretic
Villager
What it really comes down to are the philosophical & ideological differences. 2e was the beginning of the end when it came to DM control. The focus began to shift to empowering the poor, disenfranchised players, or "player agency" as it was eventually called. Political correctness & social justice concessions were the first thing that I noticed. The second was the absence of all of those DM resources (tables, generation charts, detailed clarifications, etc.) that you say that no one even used. TBF, I come from that magical time period when all that my mentor DM had were the LBBs (+supplements), the MM(1) (finally!), the CSotIO setting, and a WHOLE lot of homebrew charts and milieu data (mostly based on Tolkien's works). We were so excited when we managed to acquire a copy of the new PH and, eventually, the DMG. We were in absolute heaven! The DM was Lord of the Manor back then, and we loved every second of every session....even when we suffered horrible fates, by the capricious fate of the dice, the stupidity and/or arrogance of character action/inaction, or (OK, the title is a bit click baity.
Background: I started playing in 1981 with BX and quickly moved to AD&D. I've been saying for years that one of my favorite editions is 1e but I always have a disclaimer: "With 2e elements."
Note: This is not an edition war thread. Please don't make posts about "this edition just sucks" and leave it at that. This is meant to be an honest discussion about why one would prefer 1e over 2e.
I was playing another session of 1e yesterday and something that's always been in the back of my mind really came out. Why would anyone still play full 1e when 2e is right there? 1e is painful by comparison. Again, I say this as a fan! But let's be real.
- THAC0 is more intuitive than attack matrix tables
- 1e has a ton of rules and charts that slow the game down to a crawl and are handled better in 2e. Rules and charts that pretty much everyone ignores anyway.
- 1e thieves are garbage. You suck at everything you're supposed to be good at until you get near name level, but 95% of the game is played before that, so....
- 2e cleans up that mess by being able to distribute your points at at least be decent at a few things.
- Don't get me started on 1e bards (even if I am not a fan of the class to begin with)
- If you're a fan of psionics, stay away from 1e's rules
So what does 1e have that 2e doesn't?
- Aesthetic: Trampier, Otis, etc. I get this, because I prefer the art of 1e more than 2e, but I don't think it's a reason to stick with 1e rules.
- Gary wrote 1e, Lorraine was in charge of 2e. Weird reason, because Gary and Lorraine don't game at your tables. Pretty sure they don't care which rules you are using. (also, Lorraine didn't design 2e, Zeb Cook did, who is regarded as one of the best designers of all time--look at his portfolio).
- Devils and demons and assassins and half orcs. Yeah, 2e was sanitized, but it's super easy to use demons and devils in a 2e campaign. Why you would use 1e rules just for this reason is kinda weird.
- Classic modules. 2e was designed intentionally to be backwards compatible. You can run 1e modules without conversion in a 2e game.
- Nostalgia. This one I get, because I love me some good nostalgia.
And yet, we see a lot of 1e clones, but IIRC, there's only one 2e clone, and almost every single OSR group I've seen plays a 1e version and not 2e. Does it really come down to "Gary's edition vs. Lorraine's edition?" Or I'm hoping it's more for nostalgia and the memories.
) having the actual temerity (as a player) to disrespect the DM. This is how it should be. This is what we lost.
Mod note:
The first thing you probably should have noticed was the site rules (linked at the bottom of every page), especially our inclusivity policy.
First post, resurrecting a thread that's been dormant for a month and a half, with a post that brushes up on the rules isn't a great look. You might want to familiarize yourself with the site, and the flavor of the place.
Jahydin
Hero
@BornHeretic
Did you guys play AD&D by the book, BECMI, or some kind of mix?
Did you guys play AD&D by the book, BECMI, or some kind of mix?
