Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Well...it does.

AxeMental wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 23, 2020 7:35 pm

Well...it does.

Indeed it does, Axe. I will never understand why so many people moved on from AD&D (first edition) and adopted the subsequent editions. It was always obvious to me not to do that.

Terrex wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 23, 2020 8:13 pm

AxeMental wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 23, 2020 7:35 pm

Well...it does.

Indeed it does, Axe. I will never understand why so many people moved on from AD&D (first edition) and adopted the subsequent editions). Its was always obvious to me not to do that.

Are people stupid? People are.

How's this for not-the-usual angle: TSR did a very poor job of expressing 1E's strengths, at least the ones that appeal to most of us now (based on other K&KA discussions), both in marketing and in the books. How do I know - or rather, why do I think this? - because I didn't understand those strengths even having played 1E (not DM'd) as a teen, until the last few years. Because even now I have to work to create my own ways of describing 1E's strengths to people who don't know it - I can't just hand them the PHB; that doesn't tell you at all what the core of the game is.

For example, here's something I use for my peers: You think of D&D (1E) as something from and for the minds of teenage geeky boys [*]. But it's whatever you want. For you it's a world created by a middle-aged, experienced adult, with all the knowledge and insight and life-lessons you have, where (NPCs) behave not by the standards of teenage fantasy flicks but according to the full creativity and imagination and understanding in your mind. And where the adventurers are creations of the same minds - with backstory, motives, personality that are whatever you can create using all your experience, and who go and do and live however and wherever you can think of.

But you have to read deeply into the rules, really the DMG, and into other writings in Dragon, here, etc. to understand that philosophy. Handing someone the PHB won't do it, as I said. To understand that the world is the DMs personal creation - they aren't just memorizing and adjudicating - for their players. To understand the players' true freedom and the experience of the table, how ultimately engaging it is, the improvisation, the tension and thrill. To understand that all those rules are just peripheral tools, not even the primary means of play.

I came back to 1E because I thought to myself, only a few years ago, 'Hey, I don't need to follow those rules. I could just use the rules I want and create my own world, in the mind of my middle-aged self and appealing to my friends, and what a creative endeavor it could be with the players.' And only then did I look again at 1E, after decades, and discover that that was the idea all along.

I suspect the great majority think of 1E as, essentially, 5E - the game and mechanics-centric style - but with less efficient rules. And remember that we're deep in a bubble here at K&KA; few people in the world know things that are taken for granted here.



[*] Not that there is anything wrong with teenage geeky boys, but I and my peers aren't them (any more, for some of us).

MrGrey wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 23, 2020 11:04 pm

....And remember that we're deep in a bubble here at K&KA; few people the world know things that are taken for granted here....

For the record I've felt the way I posted loooong before discovering K&KA. I'm not saying I'm in the majority -- far from it. I'm just saying from the beginning of the release of subsequent editions (introduction of 2e), I've never understood what would make someone depart from the paradigm presented in PHB, MM, and DMG and move to what was presented in 2e and onward. I get what you mean, a little bit. But keep in mind I (and the rest of my group) rejected 2e while in h.s. because we grokked some of the basic AD&D premises you're talking about as high schoolers. Plus, I think the look and feel of 2e sucked. I never and still don't think of me (or our group) in some 99th percentile for aligning with Gygaxian D&D, so that leaves me still not understanding...

Early D&D had the misfortune, by virtue of its subject matter and versatility, to capture the pent-up demand of the 1st generation that in large numbers never had to curtail their dreaming early to get on with life.

It couldn’t have exploded without the very expansion of leisure time that made its design choices foreign as opposed to presumed.

It was written by someone grounded in an earlier ethos that dreamt - but not taking precedence over skill, risk, limited choices, and reward/failure. Only in synergy with these other things. In part as a victory over those things.

Instead of considering a structure that required working within constraints not selected as a challenge, the wave adopters wanted a structure focused on facilitation. Imposed constraints were seen as unnecessary impediments to dreaming whatever one desired.

I really don’t think the game we love would have continued in the way we love it. That’s not a fault of the game. More of a recognition it was a meteor that straddled the end of one culture and the ascendence of another, changed culture that largely rejected certain of the design’s underpinnings.

Edit - at least in my own case, the continued rejection of those underpinnings by 5E is why it doesn’t grab me. But it’s compromise of pulling forward other aesthetic, or “chrome” old school elements is why many can enjoy it. Because that was what they enjoyed most before, and they’re joined by many, many new players who are like-minded. It is “old enough”

But to quote the thread - 1E still rules! Now the situation is flipped (to a lesser degree) and there are those who’ve never played in an authentically old school style, even though it’s what would suit them best.

1e AD&D is an artform and dependent on the DM. The other editions are dumbing down the game to broaden the audience because, money. Our society is dumbing down as well so the number who make it to the top of the mountain and reach 1e become fewer, the quest harder, but the reward much greater. We were lucky.

There is a thread at DF that asks what the difference between new school and old, and this was my summary:

Bobjester wrote:Modern "New" School characters focus on personal excellence and self-identification. Subjugating the rest of the campaign world is just a by-product.
Old School characters focused on the struggle between the characters and the world. Gaining treasure and power were the rewards of conquering evil.

Sorry, guys.

D&D (original) rules!

But Advanced is an excellent vassal who rules over his domains in trustworthy (if unnecessarily dense) ways.

(Just having a little fun.)

Fight on!

tetramorph wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 24, 2020 3:55 pm

Sorry, guys.

D&D (original) rules!

But Advanced is an excellent vassal who rules over his domains in trustworthy (if unnecessarily dense) ways.

(Just having a little fun.)

Fight on!

Ha, if AD&D 1e didn't exist, I would surely play OD&D. But, alas AD&D does exist.

No problems with OD&D, here. Btw, AD&D is what I know and prefer, I certainly understand the appeal of the original rules.

JasonZavoda wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 24, 2020 10:37 am

1e AD&D is an artform and dependent on the DM. The other editions are dumbing down the game to broaden the audience because, money. Our society is dumbing down as well so the number who make it to the top of the mountain and reach 1e become fewer, the quest harder, but the reward much greater. We were lucky.

Tim Kask said over at DF (awhile ago): "Gary and I shared the opinion that one of the things that kept D&D from spreading any more rapidly was the lack of imaginative DMs."

I don't begrudge them broadening the appeal of D&D; many people never would have played at all otherwise, and also some of those people find their way to 1E. We should stand outside their games and conventions and recruit them. :) At least, perhaps some articulate 1E spokesperson can make a broad appeal at big 5E conventions - not with the aim of converting them all, but of opening a door to those who would be interested or at least curious if they only knew.

Terrex wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:09 pm

tetramorph wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 24, 2020 3:55 pm

Sorry, guys.

D&D (original) rules!

But Advanced is an excellent vassal who rules over his domains in trustworthy (if unnecessarily dense) ways.

(Just having a little fun.)

Fight on!

Ha, if AD&D 1e didn't exist, I would surely play OD&D. But, alas AD&D does exist.

No problems with OD&D, here. Btw, AD&D is what I know and prefer, I certainly understand the appeal of the original rules.

1e hits the "sweet spot" in complexity and simplicity. Its the natural Gygaxian evolution of 0e, and truth be told the game should have stopped at 1e. That said, 0e is also great. It is its own thing, has a more Tolkien feel IMO (with the elves and dwarves in particular). Still, it starts to get difficult at higher levels, and it seems to start to feel limited as time goes on (at least that was my experience). Its just as TRP says "once you've gone 1e Gygax, you won't go back". Or am I confusing that with his time in a Turkish prison. JK TRP was never in Turkey.

AH was a rock, but 1e rolled me!
Make it bad and play it funky.

I agree ever since I went back exclusively right after 3e (I had never really stopped using originals for reference in "the game") its been better than ever. Edition stuff is a transient phase that disappears as its replaced.

After all the edition stuff, I just wish we could lose the D&D name and call it "Gary's Game" and "Advanced Gary's Game".
Plus "Basic Gary' s Game", "Basic Gary's Game for Teens", "Expert Gary's Game for Teens" and "Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortals Gary's Game for the Whole Family"...

I think that D&D evolved the way most creative games evolve.

Monopoly isn't very creative. Rules set in place, hardly ever change. Same with chess. And poker. All are fun, but they don't encourage growth.

Star Fleet Battles is a lot more creative. Started with a simple pamphlet rules set, then added some supplement books, became a boxed set, became a 3-volume thing to fit into a binder notebook, and so on. As the core audience grew more sophisticated the game got more complex, which is perhaps great for the core group but hell for a newcomer trying to catch up. More races. More ships. More details.

D&D is sort of like that. The starting set of OD&D quickly expanded into supplements and ideas in SR and Dragon, and key parts of the game were in many different books so AD&D became a necessity for organizational purposes. Then AD&D spawned UA, and more ideas in Dragon and pretty soon there were enough add-on books that reorganization was needed. (Also, the need to remove Gary's name from almost everything.) That was the creation of 2E, and it had a lot more player options. Players always want more options. And extra books to buy, and eventually rules bloat. Then 3E came about with newfangled ideas and an attempt to reorganize (plus remove TSR) along the way. But 3E gave away too much through the SRD so 4E was an attempt to take the game back but it bombed so 5E was born. You all know this, of course, but my point is that a game tends to naturally evolve into something more complex. If AD&D hadn't happened, OD&D would probably have continued with supplements V, VI, VII, and so on.

I think that at the heart any of the editions have the potential to be good games to a particular demographic, but there is something nostalgic about the early rules. The simplicity, the way the books were written, the B&W line-art instead of fancy paintings, and so on. It's a culture thing. It's kind of a "you had to be there" thing. OD&D has it. AD&D has it. Later editions lose it.

So, to wrap the post back to the original topic, I think that even if 2E hadn't happened we would find after so many years that 1E wouldn't have remained the original 1E any more. Too many creative people putting in their ideas and putting their stamp on the game.

Just a few musings from another old guy.