Klytus, I'm bored.

[Deleted]

So, ask me about the Old Dayse of D&D. Pre-1977.

[idrahil]

Hello!

What were the first wilderness adventures like? Did fighting men really show up and challenge the PC fighting men to joust?

[Deleted]

Dec 14, 2013 13:02:13 GMT -6 idrahil said:

Hello!

What were the first wilderness adventures like? Did fighting men really show up and challenge the PC fighting men to joust?

The first wilderness adventures took place once we hit 6th level or so. We really did use the Outdoor Survival map and wander around poking at stuff, and yes, we got challenged to jousts now and then.

[Red Baron]

Did you use the chainmail jousting rules when jousting?

[Deleted]

Sometimes. Actually, a lot.

[Deleted]

How fast was character advancement? If I made a 1st level character in Gary's campaign, how many sessions would I have to make to see level 2? Provided I didn't die, of course.

[Deleted]

Depends on the rest of the group. My first game, I was with a bunch of 4th-5th level chars. We hit one or two 1st level rooms to give me a chance to fight, so I got full XP for gold, and leveled up.

Usually only 3 or 4 sessions should see you at 2nd level, and about the same to 3rd. It was after about 5th that it slowed down a lot.

[monk]

Do you think that rate of level progression had something to do with the 100 xp/HD rule? Are were you guys already using the later rules?

[Deleted]

I never saw Gary use 100 xp/HD. XP was strictly figured off gold; we'd say how much total gold we had, and Gary would give us an XP percentage based on his estimate of average difficulty. Monster XP was not tracked separately.

[monk]

Interesting. I always thought the 100/HD was a simpler way that was used at the beginning (and I'm always interested in "simpler")--sounds like Gary's way was even simpler than that. I bet it really reinforced the idea of skirting monsters whenever possible, too.

Thanks for the reply.

[Hawklord]

How often were miniatures brought to the gaming table during a role play session? Were they mostly used to denote marching order or often for tactical positions during melee? Did different DMs (Gygax, Arneson and Barker, especially) use miniatures in different ways during gameplay?

Thanks for your time. Recent editions of D&D are often called "boardgamey" for their use of miniatures (sometimes rightfully so). I remember using miniatures in all my gaming groups whenever space allowed, back to when I started in 1981 (yup, I'm new to this game). I was curious how integral they were in the game's earliest days.

[Red Baron]

How many players would see their character die in any given session?

[jmccann]

On those early wilderness adventures, how often did you fight numbers of monsters on the high end of the encounter sizes given (30-300 men for instance)? How many PCs and hirelings/ henchmen/ men-at-arms did the player parties have?

The descriptions many of the monsters' lairs read very much like wargame scenario set ups, especially with hundreds of creatures appearing. How often were these wargame-like scenarios played compared to what we think of as role-playing now?

[ravenheart87]

How detailed were cities and towns? How important were they? Did you have random encounters in them? How did you handle shopping?

[scottenkainen]

What condition are your original dice in?

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[Porphyre]

Dec 15, 2013 2:06:39 GMT -6 jmccann said:

On those early wilderness adventures, how often did you fight numbers of monsters on the high end of the encounter sizes given (30-300 men for instance)? How many PCs and hirelings/ henchmen/ men-at-arms did the player parties have?

The descriptions many of the monsters' lairs read very much like wargame scenario set ups, especially with hundreds of creatures appearing. How often were these wargame-like scenarios played compared to what we think of as role-playing now?

And what did you encounter most often: bandits, dervishes or berserkers?

[Deleted]

Dec 14, 2013 23:34:53 GMT -6 Hawklord said:

How often were miniatures brought to the gaming table during a role play session? Were they mostly used to denote marching order or often for tactical positions during melee? Did different DMs (Gygax, Arneson and Barker, especially) use miniatures in different ways during gameplay?

Thanks for your time. Recent editions of D&D are often called "boardgamey" for their use of miniatures (sometimes rightfully so). I remember using miniatures in all my gaming groups whenever space allowed, back to when I started in 1981 (yup, I'm new to this game). I was curious how integral they were in the game's earliest days.

I never saw Gary use miniatures.

Dave always used miniatures.

[bestialwarlust]

How long did you adventure with Lessnard? Did he ever invent new spells?

[Deleted]

Dec 15, 2013 0:26:06 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

How many players would see their character die in any given session?

Smart ones, none, or maybe 1. 2, if you were really unlucky.

Stupid ones, many or all. Dorking around with your head up your @ss would get you killed.

[Deleted]

Dec 15, 2013 5:20:01 GMT -6 ravenheart87 said:

How detailed were cities and towns? How important were they? Did you have random encounters in them? How did you handle shopping?

In the early days, not very. Shopping was handled quickly and expediently. Rob Kuntz liked city adventures so there was more going on, and yes, random encounters happened.

On the other hand they were cities, so people lived in them. They weren't battlefields.

[Deleted]

Dec 15, 2013 2:06:39 GMT -6 jmccann said:

On those early wilderness adventures, how often did you fight numbers of monsters on the high end of the encounter sizes given (30-300 men for instance)? How many PCs and hirelings/ henchmen/ men-at-arms did the player parties have?

The descriptions many of the monsters' lairs read very much like wargame scenario set ups, especially with hundreds of creatures appearing. How often were these wargame-like scenarios played compared to what we think of as role-playing now?

Occasionally. We'd have 4-6 PCs plus henchmen to number 12 to 15. Outdoors were dangerous.

I'm not entirely sure what your last question means. If we went out into the wilderness looking for lairs, we had more of a chance of finding lairs, as opposed to town or dungeon adventures.

[Deleted]

Dec 15, 2013 14:49:49 GMT -6 scottenkainen said:

What condition are your original dice in?

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

Still using them.

[Deleted]

Dec 16, 2013 11:06:45 GMT -6 bestialwarlust said:

How long did you adventure with Lessnard? Did he ever invent new spells?

I think you had to be a wizard to invent new spells.

Like all the magic users I played, I gave up on Lessnard somewhere around level 6 or 7. After that they get boring.

[legopaidi]

Ok, I'm following you around in 2 different forums

The following maybe difficult to recall but it's worth the try I guess

Do you recall the first time you actually played? What was your first character? Was Gary the DM? Who were the other players? What happened in that session?

What about the first time your character died? How did it happen? Where did it happen?

Do you remember facing any monster(s) that was used back then but didn't make it to OD&D or even AD&D?

[strangebrew]

Were alignment languages commonly used?

What was the atmosphere like? Relaxed with a beer or two? Tense and suspenseful? Lots of laughing and joking around?

[Deleted]

Yes, they were used. We were mostly Neutral. We talked to a LOT of stuff, including wandering monsters!

It was relaxed until it was "GAME ON," then it was VERY tense! Gary took EVERYTHING in character, so if you were running your mouth, your characters were standing in the middle of a monster-laden dungeon running their mouths!

[oakesspalding]

I find this subject fascinating. Thank you for your comments.

To me, the tension between the dungeon environment where you sort of (emphasis on sort of) know the strength or at least the range of the strength of the creatures on the various levels with wilderness adventures where you could theoretically saunter past 2 Giant Hogs one day but on the next get jumped by surprise by 8 Vampires is a kind of sticking point. I'm not sure how it should be resolved. How did Gary resolve it? Did he "cheat", especially for long term players? Once you hit 9th level, or whatever, were you basically immune from, so to speak, random high-level horribles unless you actively sought them out?

And I'm curious as to his not using miniatures? Do you think that's a good idea? Or was it a good idea for his style of play? What was his rationale for it?

I understand that the game was new at the time. But do you remember whether any players had any criticisms of the rules or his style of refereeing (outside of purely selfish ones)? Or was there simply so little experience with alternatives that people just accepted things as the only way they could be?

Thanks again. I know I'm probably stupid, but who is Klytus?

[LouGoncey]

Klytus is the second bad guy in Flash Gordon.

[bestialwarlust]

Is there any character death (yours or others) that was so spectacular that it sticks out after all these years?

[jmccann]

Dec 16, 2013 12:18:27 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Dec 15, 2013 2:06:39 GMT -6 jmccann said:

On those early wilderness adventures, how often did you fight numbers of monsters on the high end of the encounter sizes given (30-300 men for instance)? How many PCs and hirelings/ henchmen/ men-at-arms did the player parties have?

The descriptions many of the monsters' lairs read very much like wargame scenario set ups, especially with hundreds of creatures appearing. How often were these wargame-like scenarios played compared to what we think of as role-playing now?

Occasionally. We'd have 4-6 PCs plus henchmen to number 12 to 15. Outdoors were dangerous.

I'm not entirely sure what your last question means. If we went out into the wilderness looking for lairs, we had more of a chance of finding lairs, as opposed to town or dungeon adventures.

Thanks for your response.

What I mean for the second part of my question is this: many of the random encounters involve hundreds of creatures. For instance, I generated an encounter with bandits with 56 light foot, 35 short bow, 35 light horse, 28 med horse, and a bunch of higher level figures, and this is lower than average for bandits. This sounds more like a wargame scenario than an RPG encounter. Did you ever play an encounter with such a large number of creatures as wargames, or would you only roleplay such an encounter?