TSR Why would anyone WANT to play 1e?

[Flying Toaster]

Wizardry also had ASIs and proto-prestige classes. Your abilities had a random chance to increase every time you levelled up, and occasionally that would allow a character of the four basic classes (Fighter, Mage, Priest, Thief) to switch to elite classes usually unavailable at level 1.

Bishop: Mage/Priest combo with ability to identify magic items, cannot be Neutral

Lord: Fighter with Priest spells and undead turning, must be Good

Samurai: Fighter with Mage spells and deadly crits, must be Good or Neutral

Ninja: martial arts assassin with high chance of deadly crits, must be Evil

A few more thoughts about Wizardry, and how it both followed old D&D conventions and also anticipated some later trends in character building and party composition. For my friends and I, this game felt like playing D&D solo since the minimal dungeon graphics were basically the same as theater of the mind. You were expected to map the dungeon levels on real graph paper as you explored, very old school. I never actually finished the first game as I always got bogged down on the third level, which had some dungeon corridor intersections trapped with magic that would spin you around or maybe just teleport you, making it hard to map and easy to get lost. Just like in OD&D there were jokes and puns, such as a deadly magic sword called the Blade Cuisinart. The spells all had nonsensical all-caps fantasy names; the most powerful Mage spell was called TILTOWAIT and was described as something akin to a very small thermonuclear blast.

The basic classes (Fighter, Mage, Priest, Thief) are clearly the same quartet found in OD&D and B/X (yes, I am including the thief... ). The ability scores were mostly similar to those in D&D, but Luck replaced Charisma as peaceful NPC interaction was not a major feature of the Mad Overlord’s dungeons. The game used an RNG to “roll up” characters, who qualified for various classes if their stats were high enough. The Bishop (cleric/mage) was the only one of the elite classes that was usually within reach when rolling up new first level characters. PCs needed to play for a while and level up their stats if they wanted to qualify for Lord (paladin) or Samurai (fighter/mage with crit capability), and the unarmed Ninja martial artist needed ridiculous stats (17 in everything!!!).

The tripartite alignment system (Good, Neutral, Evil) was actually just as much a consideration when building characters and parties as ability scores. Of the eight classes only the Fighter and Mage had no alignment restrictions. Four classes were restricted to two choices and two had no choice at all. Priests and Bishops had an alignment quirk requiring them to choose either Good or Evil, but not Neutral, which resembles a weird old D&D rule requiring Neutral clerics to change alignment and pick a side in the cosmic war of Law vs. Chaos by the time they reach a certain level. Thieves could be Neutral or Evil, but not Good. Samurai could be Good or Neutral, but not Evil.

The Lord had to be Good and the Ninja had to be Evil. Since there was a standard rule that Good and Evil characters could each mix freely with Neutrals, but could not go adventuring together, no PC party could ever include both a Lord and a Ninja. However a Neutral Samurai and an Evil Ninja work fine together. In order to have some thieving skills in your party you had to either roll up a Neutral Thief who could hang with the Good-aligned clergy, or make an Evil Thief who might someday aspire to change class into the 17+ nirvana of the Ninja.

In practice, if you wanted to use elite classes you had to choose a standard party alignment when rolling up your characters and building your party. The situation resembled one of those old fox-goose-grain brain puzzles.

You had two options:

The Guardians of Goodness

• Good Fighters (2) (Lords/Samurai?)
• Good Priest
• Good Bishop (or another Mage)
• Neutral Thief
• Good/Neutral Mage

The Bastion of Badness

• Neutral Fighters (2) (Samurai?)
• Evil Priest
• Evil Bishop (or another Mage)
• Evil Thief (Ninja???)
• Neutral Mage

 

[seebs]

I've never understood people who said it was confusing and hard to learn. We played it RAW when I started in this hobby in 1980 because we didn't know any other choice and there were articles from Gygax over the years telling us we were 'wrong' if we even looked at the book from the wrong angle.

I don't think I ever found all the rules to play by. Like, I did once run into a thing about weapon speed factors, but I didn't really understand how it worked or when it applied, so I ignored it. Did you figure that out and use it? If not, I think, probably, you weren't playing RAW. Because that was definitely a rule that was buried in there somewhere. Did you notice the thing where fighters got an attack per level on weak enough humanoids? Did you remember which of cloak/ring of protection could be used with magical leather armor, and which could be used with nonmagical plate?

 

[Clint_L]

I haven't been this confused since someone was trying to explain to me why punctuation in texts was aggressive.

Our babysitter had to kindly explain this to me some years ago. "Just so you know..." I've never felt so old.

 

[fuindordm]

I'm an advocate of 1e but in the spirit of the thread, here is what might make me less enthusiastic about playing it without any house rules at all:
1. Too much differential between PCs due to randomized ability scores and hit points, unless everyone agrees to play in a funnel / meatgrinder campaign style
2. Exceptional strength is whack
3. Level limits are just about the worst possible way to "balance" the raves
4. Unearthed arcana is about 70% unusable as written and has some content that makes the game worse

 

[Jahydin]

I'm an advocate of 1e but in the spirit of the thread, here is what might make me less enthusiastic about playing it without any house rules at all:
1. Too much differential between PCs due to randomized ability scores and hit points, unless everyone agrees to play in a funnel / meatgrinder campaign style
2. Exceptional strength is whack
3. Level limits are just about the worst possible way to "balance" the raves
4. Unearthed arcana is about 70% unusable as written and has some content that makes the game worse

Agree with your points. One of the reasons I'd rather play Hyperboria or ACKSII.

Is there an "AD&D like" system you use or do you just houserule?

 

[Lanefan]

I am imagining the “open market” for magic items in a Gygaxian 1E world like Greyhawk:

(a sketchy half-orc dweomer-monger, clad in a long black leather overcoat, lurks in a dark alley next to the odoriferous privy behind the Drunken Druid Tavern, accosting passersby)

“Pssst... hey buddy... wanna buy a magic carpet? It’ll help you FLY!!! Wait wait, where ya going? You need Gauntlets of Ogre Power? I got a Codpiece of Bugbear Comeliness , that’s almost as good, right?”

Many different versions of a D&D alchemist class appeared in various products and publications, some at least semi-official. It was usually presented as “NPC only” (“sure, Jan...” ) but obviously some people must have tried to play them at the table. Maybe there were so many attempts to make such a class because the alchemist is arguably even more iconic to medieval European culture (and also Chinese culture too) than official PHB classes like the armored cleric, ranger, paladin, or illusionist. On the other hand it is not really clear why they would go adventuring as PCs, instead of staying home to make elixirs and research hermetic lore. Those 1E rules seem like weak sauce to me. Why would anybody go into alchemy if all you can do is be a lab assistant to the local “Enchanter”*?

The way I've sort of dealt with this is that adventuring is the high-risk high-reward way to quickly get better at what you do while functioning as a stay-at-home member of the same class is the very slow way of getting better at what you do. Thus, someone who doesn't feel like risking death at every turn while adventuring might go into alchemy as a slow safe way of improving magic skills in general, learning from the 7th-level Mage along the way.

I came up with some basic mechanics for how non-adventuring Fighters, Mages, Clerics etc. could slowly advance in levels over the years spent at their trades; and for how those stay-at-homes could convert to adventurers and back.

I also came up with a couple of examples of stay-at-home classes that never adventure - and gain no benefits if they do - but that adventurers are likely to encounter, those being Sage and Artificer. Alchemist could easily (and probaby should) be another such.

 

[Lanefan]

4. Unearthed arcana is about 70% unusable as written and has some content that makes the game worse

As written, UA is an unholy mess with a few sparkling exceptions.

Careful tweaking and massaging and houseruling can, however, make about 60-70% of it fairly worthwhile. The rest gets chucked.