TSR Why would anyone want to play 1e?

[Tesral]

Sure, absolutely.

Gary's fool's errand of trying to define everything makes some sense in the context of how at the time he was writing AD&D TSR was making a bunch of cash from tournament play and they wanted to standardize tournament refereeing more. And how he got continual calls and requests for rules clarifications. He could have stuck by his original guns and told people they needed to define it for themselves, but likely tournament play was a factor which decided him in favor of defining things more clearly.

Of course, once he decided to try to cut Dave out of royalties, writing a bunch more rules became a way to try to differentiate AD&D as a different game from the one Dave's contract gave him royalties for.

I met Gygax once. He was an naughty word. You cannot standardize RPGs. You can do that for chess, even Monopoly. The games are played inside a given box. RPGs by definition have no box. They tried again with The RPG society what ever it was called (I don't remember,), and Pathfinder with their Pathfinder Society. Building a box around an open environment.

I do rememeber how the needs of the tourment play twisted the rules of the game from as written. And how they kept having to patch the box as people found the holes and exploited them. I had tourmenment players in my game once in a while and they were infurating. They could cite rules verbatum, but could not ROLEplay.

 

[Mannahnin]

I met Gygax once. He was an naughty word. You cannot standardize RPGs. You can do that for chess, even Monopoly. The games are played inside a given box. RPGs by definition have no box. They tried again with The RPG society what ever it was called (I don't remember,), and Pathfinder with their Pathfinder Society. Building a box around an open environment.

I do rememeber how the needs of the tourment play twisted the rules of the game from as written. And how they kept having to patch the box as people found the holes and exploited them. I had tourmenment players in my game once in a while and they were infurating. They could cite rules verbatum, but could not ROLEplay.

I think you can absolutely have clearer rules without falling into the trap of trying to over-define everything. But yeah, essentially the big draw/unique advantage of TTRPGs run by a human being is the tactical infinity/possibility to try ANYTHING, and you have to accept the idiosyncracies of the human judging/running the game in order to get those things.

I do remember my first RPGA tournament (in '89, I think?), and how the player who won it (and a pre-release copy of the new 2E Players Handbook as his prize) was a fun guy who got into character. We were in the same party/at the same table in the first round, and had a good humorous rivalry roleplaying dynamic with our assigned characters. I never played a lot of D&D tournaments, though, so I may have missed out on seeing a lot of other crappy players and behaviors.

 

[Tesral]

Sure, absolutely.

Gary's fool's errand of trying to define everything makes some sense in the context of how at the time he was writing AD&D TSR was making a bunch of cash from tournament play and they wanted to standardize tournament refereeing more. And how he got continual calls and requests for rules clarifications. He could have stuck by his original guns and told people they needed to define it for themselves, but likely tournament play was a factor which decided him in favor of defining things more clearly.

Of course, once he decided to try to cut Dave out of royalties, writing a bunch more rules became a way to try to differentiate AD&D as a different game from the one Dave's contract gave him royalties for.

I met Gary Gygax once, he was a naughty word. I could but note how tournament play twisted the game from even the rules as written. The RPGA had a whole list of things you could do in the game, but not in tournament play. Rules to deal with collective dungeon crawling, and who got what. The Pathfinder Society went the same way.

Worse is tournament players. Those gamers whose primary experience was from the tournaments. It twisted the way they played even a casual "house game". In one case the guy was a walking rules encyclopedia, and would blurt out the appropriate rule, even if you didn't ask, especially if you didn't ask. He would twitch if someone use a perfectly ordinary spell the RPGA had banned. We are not the RPGA Dave.

I think you can absolutely have clearer rules without falling into the trap of trying to over-define everything.

I knew one woman, names left out to protect the guilty. She had a group of what she called "purple players" If you instructed them to come to the softball game in anything BUT purple, three would show up in purple. In short she tried to idiot proof her game. The rules were so ratcheted down you could not do anything. So no you cannot idiot proof something. The idiots will drag you to their level and beat you with experience. Tournament rules were that light. A patch on every time someone found a way to exploit the game.

 

[GreyLord]

from what I read about OD&D, the main problem with it was that it was hard to learn unless you're taught by someone who already learned the game. IIRC, the Holmes boxed set was designed to fix that.

I don't know, to be honest. I started by playing with some older kids who already knew the rules of the game. I didn't get the rules till later. When I got them (OD&D) was actually really easy to understand because I had already been playing it with the others already. I can see how it could be a hot mess in retrospect, but when I started, I was young and how it worked already was taught to me (at least the basics of it).

That said, I'd always want to play OD&D with Greyhawk at a minimum.

Greyhawk is absolutely one supplement that I require these days if I go with OD&D.

The BEST version (I felt, IMO) for teaching or learning how to play the game (on your own, or with a group) was Mentzer's Red Box (so the second Red Box Basic).

That was uncompared for how it introduce someone to RPG mechanics and play until Pathfinder's Beginner Box (1e) came about.

 

[GreyLord]

I met Gygax once. He was an naughty word. You cannot standardize RPGs. You can do that for chess, even Monopoly. The games are played inside a given box. RPGs by definition have no box. They tried again with The RPG society what ever it was called (I don't remember,), and Pathfinder with their Pathfinder Society. Building a box around an open environment.

I do rememeber how the needs of the tourment play twisted the rules of the game from as written. And how they kept having to patch the box as people found the holes and exploited them. I had tourmenment players in my game once in a while and they were infurating. They could cite rules verbatum, but could not ROLEplay.

I loved Mr. Gygax and that entire gang. You and me had very different experiences with him.

PS: AS per the society? Is that the RPGA or was it the Castles and Crusades Society? Or was it something else.

 

[GreyLord]

I met Gary Gygax once, he was a naughty word. I could but note how tournament play twisted the game from even the rules as written. The RPGA had a whole list of things you could do in the game, but not in tournament play. Rules to deal with collective dungeon crawling, and who got what. The Pathfinder Society went the same way.

Worse is tournament players. Those gamers whose primary experience was from the tournaments. It twisted the way they played even a casual "house game". In one case the guy was a walking rules encyclopedia, and would blurt out the appropriate rule, even if you didn't ask, especially if you didn't ask. He would twitch if someone use a perfectly ordinary spell the RPGA had banned. We are not the RPGA Dave.




I knew one woman, names left out to protect the guilty. She had a group of what she called "purple players" If you instructed them to come to the softball game in anything BUT purple, three would show up in purple. In short she tried to idiot proof her game. The rules were so ratcheted down you could not do anything. So no you cannot idiot proof something. The idiots will drag you to their level and beat you with experience. Tournament rules were that light. A patch on every time someone found a way to exploit the game.

There was business Gygax, and Mr. Gygax.

With a Tournament, there has to be some attempt to put down rules, otherwise, it is chaos. Could you imagine the Champion's cup if no one tried to define what the rules of Futbal were? Not only would it be unfair, it would have no semblance or framework that one could relate to!

So, for tournaments to work, there had to be some basis for them to work on.

In personal games, things were far more relaxed. It was more like what you'd probably imagine an OD&D game to be like than the AD&D tournaments.

I never ran into tournament players like they way you describe them. Most of them were fun and played quite freely in their normal home games as well.

There were rules lawyers, but I don't think they were as prevalent as you make them out to be. Their numbers greatly increased with 3e and the WotC/Hasbro editions to the point that they could cause trouble, but I never really had or saw trouble with them during the TSR days. They were such a small minority in games outside tournaments as to really be quelled by everyone else (or laughed out of the room so they had to play by themselves).

Now after 3e and 3.5 came out...well...that's a different story.

 

[Mannahnin]

I don't know, to be honest. I started by playing with some older kids who already knew the rules of the game. I didn't get the rules till later. When I got them (OD&D) was actually really easy to understand because I had already been playing it with the others already. I can see how it could be a hot mess in retrospect, but when I started, I was young and how it worked already was taught to me (at least the basics of it).

That said, I'd always want to play OD&D with Greyhawk at a minimum.

Greyhawk is absolutely one supplement that I require these days if I go with OD&D.

I've played with and without it.

With it, the game is much closer to AD&D.

Without it, the game is more open, there's not huge variance in power between characters, and the DM has more blank space to implement their own tweaks and customizations.

I think a lot of substantial design mistakes for AD&D first appeared in Greyhawk, like the "rich get richer" ability score extremes (which also incentivize fudging character gen) and the Thief class, which simultaneously is terrible at its job and implicitly reduces the ability of other classes to do several things every adventurer should have a chance to do. I think there are better ways to implement just about all the good ideas in GH.

 

[Tesral]

There was business Gygax, and Mr. Gygax.

With a Tournament, there has to be some attempt to put down rules, otherwise, it is chaos. Could you imagine the Champion's cup if no one tried to define what the rules of Futbal were? Not only would it be unfair, it would have no semblance or framework that one could relate to!

So, for tournaments to work, there had to be some basis for them to work on.

In personal games, things were far more relaxed. It was more like what you'd probably imagine an OD&D game to be like than the AD&D tournaments.

I never ran into tournament players like they way you describe them. Most of them were fun and played quite freely in their normal home games as well.

There were rules lawyers, but I don't think they were as prevalent as you make them out to be. Their numbers greatly increased with 3e and the WotC/Hasbro editions to the point that they could cause trouble, but I never really had or saw trouble with them during the TSR days. They were such a small minority in games outside tournaments as to really be quelled by everyone else (or laughed out of the room so they had to play by themselves).

Now after 3e and 3.5 came out...well...that's a different story.

I'll grant that. It's not uncommon.

As to the RPGA, it is now the D&D Adventurers League. Hasbro is doing everything to scrape the Open Gaming License off the bottom of its evil little shoes. The name change came in 2014. I have an intertubes machine, I can know anything.

Tournament rules rose from necessity. Muchkins pushing the envelope to win, Win, WIN at any cost. I understand the need, but it did warp the game away from the more causal roots. House games the DM can have a few words with said Munchkin to "dial it back dude". Tournament rules the DM has less latitude, "The rules allow it" is a valid argument.

I've played tournaments, I find it less enjoyable, the noise, the funk. Yes the funk. Even if everyone walks in clean, after hours of gaming with 200 other people the odor of sweaty bodies will knock you over. Experience, not conjecture. If you are in there from the start you don't notice. I've DMed one off games at cons to success. Best set up I even had was a hotel no longer with us (torn down) I got a conference suite. Big table, bathroom right there. Not noisy etc. I liked it so much my game room now has a conference table.