TSR Why would anyone WANT to play 1e?

[Mannahnin]

It could equally be that they didn't think real-world infectious diseases had enough (or the right) resonance for many western audiences in the early 00s. Or the simple 'D&D isn't set in the real world' mindset that made them remove Lucerne hammers and include double-bladed swords, etc.

Regardless, while I'm dubious of any grand meaning to the disease charts (any more than whether ST:ToS has Spock suffering from space-measles instead of leukemia or diphtheria), I think it is a reasonable premise -- and significantly more persuasive than a notion that everyone has to read a specific select list of supporting fiction or some other claim. That said, if Maliszewski actually used the term "decadent," I'm going to roll my eyes a little, because, good lord, can't we just say we prefer X over Y without having to imply that Y is somehow indulgent, inferior, condescending, worthy of condescension, or reflecting a state of moral or cultural decline?

If it's any consolation, JMal didn't use that word in the first article of his I found on the topic. I don't know if he used it elsewhere.

I could imagine him using it, though I imagine it'd be at least a bit ironic. He has tended to take a very nostalgic, and sometimes elegiac, tone.

 

[Clint_L]

Okay, why should you play 1e? Well, because it's the OG! Or at least the closest version of the game to the OG that is actually playable by itself. And don't wrorry about all the tables and confusing rules, because nobody played it entirely as written back in the day, including Gary Gygax, so you are expected to house rule and make it your own. We did away with all the species and multi-classing restrictions, radically simplified the initiative system (you'll see) and used new rules from Dragon magazine like they were going out of style. The art is totally awesome, in a sometimes literally amateur way, and often totally NSFW (my first edition Deities and Demigods was a revelation). And Gygax may have the most ponderous writing style you are ever likely to find, but it is uniquely him and I love it.

Edit: however, I will argue until the cows come home that it was nowhere near as deadly as a lot of folks make it out to be these days. I mean, it was in theory, but in practice you went everywhere with a pile of sacrificial henchmen, which is why most of us had main characters that we played for years.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Edit: however, I will argue until the cows come home that it was nowhere near as deadly as a lot of folks make it out to be these days. I mean, it was in theory, but in practice you went everywhere with a pile of sacrificial henchmen, which is why most of us had main characters that we played for years.

This is largely true. I say largely, because it was probably one of the most deadliest editions RAW (I'd argue OD&D and B/X were deadlier). But a lot of folks forget things like

• henchmen/hirelings
• -10 hp before death
• tons of healing potions all over, and if you had a cleric with a decent WIS, even at 1st level you had several cure light wounds handy.

Now, recovery was super slow. That's why we had a stable of PCs. If you were really wounded that would take weeks of down time, you went back and got another PC.

So while RAW it certainly is deadlier than modern editions, sometimes the lethality gets overstated. I say this as a person who has playing 1e continuously since 1981.

 

[Voadam]

but in practice you went everywhere with a pile of sacrificial henchmen, which is why most of us had main characters that we played for years.

I think this varied significantly group to group.

I never had henchmen in the 1e or Basic games I played in or ran. Every 1e and Basic adventure was just the party. I DM'd B1 in Search of Adventure and the Moathouse in the Temple of Elemental Evil and there was not a single henchman as they explored the dungeons.

 

[Mannahnin]

This is largely true. I say largely, because it was probably one of the most deadliest editions RAW (I'd argue OD&D and B/X were deadlier). But a lot of folks forget things like

• henchmen/hirelings
• -10 hp before death
• tons of healing potions all over, and if you had a cleric with a decent WIS, even at 1st level you had several cure light wounds handy.

Now, recovery was super slow. That's why we had a stable of PCs. If you were really wounded that would take weeks of down time, you went back and got another PC.

So while RAW it certainly is deadlier than modern editions, sometimes the lethality gets overstated. I say this as a person who has playing 1e continuously since 1981.

Recovery is definitely accelerated from OD&D. In keeping with how healing accelerated across the editions. I do often point out how AD&D characters have more base HP and access to more healing spells at low level than OD&D and B/X characters.

The simple "you don't die until -10" house rule so many of us used isn't exactly the RAW, of course. Per the 1E Zero Hit Points rule (DMG 82) bleeding to -10 only kicks in if you're knocked to exactly 0HP (or optionally as low as -3), so there's a narrow window to qualify for it. If you get dropped to -4 by a hit, per the book rules (even the softer optional variant) you're just dead.

 

[Nikosandros]

The challenge of doing it this way is that instead of saying "well, I think you'd probably need to try and dodge that effect, so it's a DEX save," you have to figure out if a new effect is more like a wand, a death ray or petrification. It doesn't scale well when adding new effects and challenges.

Yes, the issue is there. As I wrote earlier, I added a sixth category (Traps & Mishaps) and I really don't have much of a problem when running AD&D, while enjoying the way it works.

I agree though that it is easier to assign a category in the ref/fort/will paradigm and that the decisions will be less arbitrary and more standardized across different tables/DMs. OTOH, I find less useful the six saves of 5e, but that's a topic for another thread.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Edit: however, I will argue until the cows come home that it was nowhere near as deadly as a lot of folks make it out to be these days. I mean, it was in theory, but in practice you went everywhere with a pile of sacrificial henchmen, which is why most of us had main characters that we played for years.

So while RAW it certainly is deadlier than modern editions, sometimes the lethality gets overstated. I say this as a person who has playing 1e continuously since 1981.

Lethality was one of those things that saw a lot of the house rules. If you didn't play with henchmen (or large parties in general), likely the death's door rules got more leeway. Or the resurrection rules were more B/X-like (no -1 con, failure chance%, or lifetime limit), and there was a level-sufficient NPC cleric in every town. Or you faced lessoned foes. Almost certainly the DM made it easy to cycle low-on-hp characters to the back lines.

The game, per RAW, is not as lethal as often described because it has constraints like henchmen and 10' corridors and enemy reaction and morale checks and rules about them going for dropped gold or food rather than chase you if you run away and so on.

The game, as played, was not as lethal as often described because as groups started playing outside the above framing, they noticed how lethal it became and implemented other house rules to match. Because 'and then we all died and had to roll up new characters' every third game session isn't as hilarious as we sometimes make it out to be, so groups flex and deviate to a state of equilibrium. The two exceptions seem to have been new groups and/or new DMs (especially young ones), and traps.

Now, recovery was super slow. That's why we had a stable of PCs. If you were really wounded that would take weeks of down time, you went back and got another PC.

This is another thing people seemed to have wild variation on. Since a lot of people ditched game time elapsed=real world time elapsed, you could just have people rest up between adventures and exactly how long it took might not matter. Others increased the natural healing rate when out of danger. Some groups knew exactly how many hp/day their group could heal up (including cleric spell averages), while others just hand-waved a 'well, you have two clerics in a party of 8, you'll heal up in 3 days in a safe location.' It was another point of wild variety.

 

[Voadam]

tons of healing potions all over,

I wouldn't say tons.

I ran a lot of modules and played in a bunch of one shots and campaigns, healing potions always felt like emergency stuff, not common use. It was rare for a PC to have more than one and usually none.

The Moathouse in the Temple of Elemental Evil for example has a total of one potion of healing and a potion of extra healing as loot for two NPCs, one of which makes a note of him using it if wounded.

Whether you could buy healing potions was variable as well, I never played in an AD&D campaign where that was something you could buy or realistically make.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

They work fine for me, I've been using them for decades. Honestly, I I'm not too concerned if something is - in general - good game design. It just has to work at my table.

I feel they are so clearly worse than Fortitude/Reflex/Will I don't know why anyone would go back to that level of ambiguity unless you want wriggle room to just make the save whatever your player's worst one is. Why is Rod/Staff/Wand even THERE? It's just Spells with a +1 bonus. I'm aware that there is a saving throw priority list in the 1E DMG. This just proves my point. Like pretty much all of 1E, it's sloppy and haphazardly designed.

For the record, I also dislike 5E's saving throws, though not as much as 1st/2nd edition's. IMO the best implementation is PF2E's where everyone has some degree of competency in F/R/W.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'm not sure I find it inherently more ghoulish than gamifying physical injuries or other forms of death, dismemberment, or disability which PCs suffer from. But you could be right that it was a factor in WotC's thinking.

Moreover real disease doesnt progress fast enough to be an issue where a high five from a paladin can fix it after an 8 hour nap.