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Post by foster1941 on Jun 28, 2018 22:35:09 GMT -6
It’s because of Frank Mentzer. When he started the RPGA at TSR in 1981, he decided to change the way D&D tournaments worked. Prior to then they’d generally been run team against team with each team building up points based on their progress, actions, and survival rate. Early AD&D modules like C1, C2, and the A series were based on this model. Frank felt that led to too much focus on tactics and not enough on role playing (and also created issues when adventures were run more than once - in multiple slots at the same connor at multiple cons - that later players would tend to pick up more info and have s tactical advantage over earlier players, and thus tended to score higher) so he changed the format. Under the new system advancement was on an an individual basis where at the end of each round each player would read their character description and everybody would vote on who played their character best. It totally changed the shape of D&D tournament play, IMO significantly for the worse.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 12, 2018 10:12:14 GMT -6
If you went with this system would you change the spell progression to allow magic-users to gain a 6th level spell at 11th level (the same way that the 1981 Expert Set does it, FWIW) or would you make 6th level spells NPC-only (except, possibly, for scrolls)?
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 8, 2018 12:03:08 GMT -6
Funny to think of a 13th level Wizard with only two magic items (albeit good ones) and AC 9. I assume Gary made a point never to have Mordenkainen get drawn into melee and presumably relied heavily on that 17 charisma to keep lots of allies between him and the monsters. These stats also suggest the exorbitant levels reported for Mordenkainen in later years (e.g. 20th level in Dragon #37 (May 1980), "mid-20s" in one of the ENWorld Q&As, etc.) were either exaggerated (perhaps the reason why Gary was always so reluctant to reveal his true stats?) or arbitrarily assigned once he became a de-facto NPC, since it's unlikely Gary continued playing him consistently enough after 1974 for all those levels to actually be earned. We know he played in Arneson's "City of the Gods" sometime c. 1976 and for a bit in Francois Froideval's campaign (where, Gary says, he was considered "low level"), and IIRC Gary mentioned that he last adventure took him to Jim Ward's Starship Warden, but even if we assume a few more adventures like those that we never heard about, that doesn't seem likely to have generated enough XP to take him anywhere near those reported heights.
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 8, 2018 11:28:08 GMT -6
I use an unwritten ad-hoc system that sort of combines the concepts and procedures of Chainmail, AD&D, and the 1981 D&D Basic Set. When I feel like a morale check is warranted due to amount of losses, bad tactical circumstances (flanked, outnumbered, etc.), or for any other reason, I roll 2d6, where the higher the roll is the more likely the unit is to break/flee, with the breaking point being based subjectively on my estimation of how steady the unit is (modified by circumstances). If the unit breaks, the amount by which they failed the roll determines whether they make an orderly retreat, an open rout, or surrender. Important NPCs and alpha-level monsters follow gronan's "what would your PC do" guideline - instead of rolling morale, I just decide in the character of that monster/NPC whether they think it's worth continuing to stand or getting the hell out of Dodge...
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 22, 2018 12:32:22 GMT -6
I've also seen a "trailing map," which is just lines on blank paper with distances marked and rooms roughed in. That's the kind of map I usually make as a player, and it's almost always sufficient, especially because it's usually a one-off game where either the dungeon isn't very complex or even if it is we're just getting a sample-sized taste of it and the idea of using a carefully drawn map to locate hidden areas is outside the scope of what we accomplish in a single 3-4 hour game. Now, if I was playing in a regular campaign-game where we were repeatedly returning to the same dungeon, and especially if became clear that the DM's maps were drawn in such a way that this was a viable strategy, then trying to draw a spatially accurate map would become a priority, and would be seen as part of the challenge of the game. In that case mapping would be fun, because there could be potential rewards for doing it well. But where there aren't, where the only function of the map is to show where we've been and (hopefully) how to get back out, I'm not convinced that using graph paper and trying to record corridor lengths and room shapes accurately is really worth the effort.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 22, 2018 11:28:31 GMT -6
We know that the DMG was a very collaborative project at TSR - the designer's notes in Dragon #28 go into a lot of detail on that, with testimonials and notes from 10 different people who worked on it, and the book itself credits no less than 30 people who all "in some way contributed to the formation of this work." It's totally possible that the DMG includes some content that was originally written or compiled by Bob Bledsaw - all of the tables for determining NPC characteristics (on pp. 100-102) certainly feel like something that might have appeared in a Judges Guild product, and some of the other tabular info in the appendices could be the same - but even so it seems like a very big exaggeration to call that "half the book." Certainly all of the essay-type stuff seems to be in Gary's "voice" (by comparison to his earlier and later writings in Dragon, modules, etc.), not to mention the large amount of material that's carried over more-or-less directly from OD&D (magic item descriptions, etc.). That alone surely accounts for more than half the book, and even if it didn't, we still have to factor in the contributions of the other 29 people who worked on the book. "Success has many mothers' - the DMG is, of course, an epic accomplishment that's still held up almost 40 years later as one of the most important rpg books ever published, so it's no surprise that everyone who was involved in its creation wants to claim as much credit as possible. That's understandable, and it's even true that without all of those people's contributions the book wouldn't have been what it was - that even seemingly-minor things like the list of adjectives to describe magical substances add to the encyclopedic weight of the volume. But that doesn't mean we should take claims that any one person (other than Gary) is responsible for "half the book" seriously at face value.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 19, 2018 17:25:37 GMT -6
By the way, one odd thing about Oriental Adventures that I (amazingly) only just noticed: It has almost no pictures. Take a look. It's really quite strange. If you know the sordid history of that book's creation, that's not surprising. The book was written and produced extremely quickly by Zeb Cook and Mike Breault because TSR had already pre-sold it to Random House as part of their plan to get out of debt (alongside other high-profile releases Unearthed Arcana and Temple of Elemental Evil) so it had to be released on-time, but (at least as Mike Breault describes it) the manuscript by Francois Froideval that Gary gave them to work from was nowhere near sufficient, so they had to essentially completely recreate the book from near-scratch at something very close to the last minute (and, apparently, had to do most of it on nights and weekends because they also had other "regular" duties at TSR they had to attend to). Given that, it's no wonder there's so little art, that the tables are minimally formatted, that even the text changes size from section to section - they literally didn't have time to do anything else and still meet the release deadline. I think just about everyone agrees that Oriental Adventures is a disappointment and not really up to the standards of the other AD&D books, but when you know the story about how it was produced, it's hard not to cut it at least a bit of extra slack.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 19, 2018 12:21:31 GMT -6
Thanks, again. It's validating to realize how close the way we instinctively played "back in the day" was to how you all played, and that all the second-guessing and overthinking that came later was pretty much just that...
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 19, 2018 11:53:01 GMT -6
OK, I remembered another one:
How were non-adventuring in-town activites like buying equipment, selling non-cash treasure, gathering info, hiring men-at-arms, etc. handled? Was that stuff typically played out at the table (i.e. you tell Gary or Rob that you're going to the armorer's shop and then roleplay out a scene where you talk and haggle with the shopkeeper) or abstracted (i.e. you subtract 50 g.p. and write down that you now have a suit of plate armor)? Were significant amounts of table-time spent on "pre-adventuring" activity of this sort or was it more likely that this sort of bookkeeping would occur off-stage between sessions and when everybody was actually gathered together at the table you got right into the action? Or was it something like the first time your character entered town, sought lodgings, went shopping, etc. it was played out at the table but once you were "established" all of that stuff tended to get glossed over?
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 17, 2018 20:26:54 GMT -6
I'm not sure about unarmed hits. I am working on something a bit different for my "Japanese" setting. But without sounding too curmudgeonly, I would challenge one of the central assumptions of this discussion - the assumption that against plate armor, bare hands are inferior to, say, swords in some significantly important way I feel like what you’re thinking about here is folded into the concept of AC. The heavier the armor, the more difficult it is for anyone to get a telling blow in. But when someone does manage to bypass the armor, a fist just causes bruising and maybe broken bones, while a weapon is more likely to cause deadly trauma. There are lots of circumstances where it’s better to disable your opponent without killing them, and in those cases using fists makes sense, but when both sides are trying to kill each other you’re better off with a deadly weapon.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 17, 2018 14:04:19 GMT -6
Thanks again. I know when I made the original post I had more questions but I’ve forgotten what they were now. If I remember, and they still seem worth asking, I may have a few more of these
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 17, 2018 14:01:51 GMT -6
For grapples and overbearing I use something like the procedure outlined in SR #2. For punches I’d say they are ineffective against anyone wearing metal armor. Otherwise they do 1 point of damage (2 if the attacker is wearing a metal gauntlet or equivalent (brass knuckles, etc)) and have a 5% chance to stun for 1 round for each point by which the attack roll exceeded the minimum needed to hit (so if you needed an 8 to hit and rolled a 15 you’ve got a 7x5=35% chance to stun the opponent causing them to lose their next round action).
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 16, 2018 23:49:35 GMT -6
Thanks for the answers. They line up with about what I expected so it’s nice to hear that the dynamics of play weren’t completely different than what I’d assumed.
Your answer to #3 is a little surprising. In addition to group play you also had some famous solo adventures in the Castle. Were those initiated by Gary in the same way as the group games? Did you know in advance which of your characters you’d be playing before showing up for the game or would you bring multiple characters and decide when you got there which one to play (based on who else was there, etc.)?
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 16, 2018 14:31:47 GMT -6
The DMG for certain, but I'd read both. Gygax has a way with words that is a lot more fun to read than most modern RPG books. As I understand it, Gary wrote maybe half of the DMG, and the other half is all Judges Guild material by Bob Blake or submissions that Bob was compiling. That’s very obviously not even remotely close to being true. Have you ever read the AD&D DMG? If so, what material in it do you think Bob Blake wrote?
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 15, 2018 13:40:16 GMT -6
I also understand the annoyance of those here who resent being told that their analysis of the logic of the game (and why it should have come about that way) is mere pedantry simply because it was not a conscious design. Except no one is telling anyone that. I've said many times: Analysis? Fine! Good! Fun! Knock yourself out! I'll do it too! Learn the origins and reasons for given decisions? Interesting! Tell me more! But denying the repeated insistence of the creators that it was a ground-up design instead of a top-down design? Foolishness! Analysis of the game is not pedantry—or if it is, I'm guilty of it too—and no one is complaining of anyone being pedantic. The problem is basing the analysis on the false assumption that because there must be a greater design behind it all, we can stretch anything we find in the text to fit that perceived greater design. Starting with a false assumption, you reach false conclusions. Except that Gronan just literally did exactly what you’re saying nobody does in the thread about “Oriental” elements in D&D a couple of days ago.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 13, 2018 18:24:04 GMT -6
FWIW in an article in The Dragon #17 (which I remember because that's one of the issues I had in hardcopy BITD) Jon Pickens added a random element to the Chainmail jousting system, as well as incorporating modifiers for D&D character level and magical equipment. His systems seems a bit TOO random to me (it the relative position matrix becomes modifiers to a d20 roll) but I could see doing something similar based on, perhaps, 1d6 or 2d6 roll. I actually think I may have already written something like that up years and years ago, or maybe I just thought about doing so...
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 13, 2018 13:01:25 GMT -6
I completely get what you're saying, of course, but forgive me if I would also flip that on its head. I think EVERYTHING in OD&D should be exotic and different. We all experienced that feeling of awe, delight and mystery when we first started playing, and then some of it inevitably wore off when we became more familiar with things. To take another stab at what I've been trying to say (mostly badly) in the last few posts, my issue with some of the "Japanese" settings is either that they claim or imply to be exotic when in reality they end up at least partly just being or seeming unpronounceable/overly complicated/pretentious/boring (from an OD&D perspective) or that, rather than being exotic, they end up being, for lack of a better word, cartoony. Ninja's (to most people now in the West, and perhaps in the East as well) aren't mysterious and sinister anymore, they're just silly video-gamey tropes. That's not exactly the poor Ninjas fault, of course, but still. I totally get it, and agree. That's one of the reasons Zeb Cook's Oriental Adventures was so disappointing in its day and is doubly so nowadays. Gary Gygax made familiar elements of (mostly) western mythology and folklore seem different and exotic (and fun and exciting) by mixing them up and pulling obscure things out of old bestiaries (like iron bull gorgons) and adding tons of his own creations, and putting all of it in his own created world. Tolkien did the same thing; so did Greg Stafford. M.A.R. Barker did it one better by starting with a baseline that was already unfamiliar to most of his assumed audience. By contrast, Zeb Cook didn't really do any of that - instead he just presented a reasonably faithful (but also pretty shallow and cursory) take on real world Asian cultures and kind of awkwardly shoe-horned them into the AD&D rules system. What should have been just the starting point became the whole package. Me either. I'm not first-hand familiar with either Chivalry and Sorcery or Land of the Rising Sun, but I do know Bushido, which is similarly historically-minded and narrowly focused. I really like it, and it seems like it would be a great choice if you wanted to play a campaign that closely modeled the chanbara samurai movies of Kurosawa, Inagaki, etc. I would compare it to something like Pendragon, which does the same thing for a campaign based narrowly and specifically on the Matter of Britain, or even, for that matter, Boot Hill. Playing those games, getting deep into that specific genre, can be a lot of fun, but at least to me it's a very different experience from D&D, which has (or at least can have) a much broader scope, and is much more amenable to pure fantasy rather than narrowly and accurately recreating one specific thing.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 13, 2018 11:20:18 GMT -6
Here's a list I came up with of "medieval Japanese" weapons without the distracting (to me) Japanese names.[SNIP] For the most part I agree with this - an axe is an axe and there's no need to use the Japanese word for axe when it's functionally the same as any other axe. That said, there are some Japanese (and Chinese, Indian, and other Asian) weapons that are sufficiently different from their western counterparts, and commonly referred to even in the west by their original-language names, that it makes more sense to me to use those names than to use some genericized name and then have to explain to players what you mean - if you have to explain that a "woman's spear" is a naginata, then you should just call it a naginata. Part of it also depends on how granular your weapon categorizations are: in an OD&D context where you've got generic "sword" and "pole arm" then it makes sense to fold most Asian variants into the existing categories, but in an AD&D (or, for that matter, Swords & Spells) context when weapon categories become much more detailed and granular, then it starts making sense to differentiate a katana from a scimitar or long sword, a naginata from a glaive, throwing stars from darts, and so on.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 13, 2018 10:59:36 GMT -6
Have you ever played Empire of the Petal Throne or one of its derivatives, foster1941 ? I'm curious. If so, what did you think of it, if you don't mind my asking. Because I have, and I must say it was quite fun and nothing like D&D beyond the base rules the milieu was woven around. Playing in a campaign strongly flavored by the mythos and cultural mores of a different civilization can be an immersive experience. Why limit yourself? Personally, I don't see any absolutes in this situation at all. D&D is only limited by your imagination, the game itself can take you anywhere you can conceive! This question feels like a non-sequiter. It seems to say that I'm advocating not including non-western cultural elements in D&D, which is the exact opposite of what I was saying. It's very cool to me that Prof. Barker took his extensive knowledge of Indian culture and language and, effectively, integrated it into D&D in a manner (at least as far as I can tell) completely unburdened by concerns with historical or cultural "accuracy" - he's not trying to represent authentic Indian culture or mythology in Tekumel (in the way that, as I understand, something like RPGPundit's Arrows of Indra tries to) but was rather using elements of those cultures as the baseline for an extrapoltaed fictional culture of his own creation. And that's exactly how I feel other Asian (and non-western generally) cultures should be integrated into D&D, not as touristy Epcot recreations of those cultures in D&D world but as full-partner elements in the fictional fantasy stew. There used to be a tendency in the west to view Asian cultures as "exotic" and "other" but the time for that has long passed - I'm confident most kids in the U.S. nowadays are more familiar with and feel more natural affinity for the style and tropes of Japanese and Chinese folklore and mythology - mostly by way of anime and video games - than they do for the Matter of France and the Matter of Britain, and the idea that such cultural elements should be treated as "exotic" and "different" rather than an integral part of fantasy feels at best quaint and old-fashioned (and at worst, well, you know...).
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 12, 2018 18:48:53 GMT -6
IMO the entire concept of a "Japanese" or "Oriental" D&D supplement is an anachronism and should be done away with. D&D has incorporated a wide array of real-world cultural elements (including Asian-derived stuff like ki-rin and golden dragons and oni (i.e. ogre magi) and rakshasa) indiscriminately into its fantasy stew all the way back to the beginning, and that's the way it should be. Should more weird monsters from Asian folklore and mythology be added to D&D's rosters? Absolutely! Should they be limited to only appearing in historically-accurate surroundings and manner? Absolutely not! D&D is a game about John Carter, Frodo, and Elric riding around on a flying carpet battling Universal's entire roster of monsters, Greek mythology's greatest hits, and a bunch of things based on random plastic toys, and then chucking the treasure into a Portable Hole from a Road Runner cartoon. Cultural authenticity should be about the last thing on anyone's mind. Is Asian-flavored and derived stuff under-represented (but not entirely absent) in early D&D, probably because Gary Gygax either wasn't as familiar with it or wasn't as interested by it as he was by western stuff? Unquestionably. Did Gary in the 80s compound the error by claiming that Asian-themed stuff should be segregated into its own version of the game? Unfortunately, yes. Are we stuck with those bad decisions and unable to correct them now that we know better? Heck no! Bring on weird nightmarish stuff out of Asian folklore and pop culture! Bring on wuxia-flavored special combat maneuvers! Let your players call their thief and assassin characters ninja and describe their swords as katanas if they wants to! D&D will be stronger and richer and more interesting for it!
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 11, 2018 20:52:39 GMT -6
Those proportions and amounts are both still pretty reasonably in line with the SR1 table, if we substitute a die roll for the flat amounts of coins. I’m thinking the roll for magic items may have been an independent preliminary roll - maybe 5% per level that the treasure is a magic item up to a max 25%, after which the number of items increases; if not then roll on the SR1 table (plus another sub-rule that at level 5+ copper becomes mixed coins).
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 11, 2018 16:06:48 GMT -6
Was this ever released in print? If not, does anyone know if there are any plans to do so? I’d really like to read this but I’m a Luddite when it comes to ebooks.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 11, 2018 15:14:17 GMT -6
So we’ve all seen the Great Kingdom map of the Castle and Crusade society, which was clearly the inspiration for the later World of Greyhawk map as far as geography and kingdom names. Dave Arneson placed Blackmoor on that map, Andre Norton used it as the setting for her D&D-based novel Quag Keep, and there are references to features from it in the introduction to the Lost Caverns of Tsojconth adventure written by Gary (based on a map by Rob Kuntz) and published by the Metro Detroit Gamers at the end of 1976.
Based on all of this, you would normally assume that this was the map for the Greyhawk Campaign, but apparently that’s not the case. Instead, as initially revealed to the public in the introduction to Necropolis in 1992, that campaign was actually based in a version of North America. More info about this was later filled in - Greyhawk City corresponded to Chicago and Dyvers to Milwaukee, the area around New Orleans was the Wild Coast, the Great Kingdom was around New York and DC, the Pacific NW was a Pleistocene area, and so on. We also know that, at least in the early phase of the campaign, there was a small scale map of the area immediately surrounding Greyhawk City and Castle that characters like Robilar and Terik eventually built their castles on, but when characters would venture out beyond that area the wilderness was represented by an infinitely repeating series of Outdoor Survival game boards.
This obviously raises a bunch of questions. What was the scale of the Greyhawk area map? Was it one mile per hex like Gary recommended in the Setting Up Your D&D Campaign Europa article (and later used for the Castle Zagyg Yggsburgh area map) or did it have a larger scale? How much area was included on it - Nyr Dyv? Dyvers? Hardby? The Gnarley Forest and Cairn Hills? Was the area of Gary’s later Elemental Evil sub-campaign located on this map or beyond it? When characters wanted to travel to a defined place outside the local area map rather than just have random outdoor adventures was that handled abstractly (you travel x days and reach the Great Kingdom) or did they have to traverse a series of OS boards? How much of the later World of Greyhawk comes from this version as opposed to the C&C Society map and/or being made up for publication? Did the pre-publication continent include places like the Sea of Dust, Perrenland, Keoland, etc? How about places that weren’t on that map like Iuz, the Pomarj, the Scarlet Brotherhood, etc? At what point did the wilderness stop being OS boards and become an actual map, or did that ever happen? Note the various locations mentioned as possible locations for the Tomb of Horrors in 1978 - was that text written before or after the publication map was devised?
Does anybody with insider knowledge have answers for any of this? It’s interesting as trivia for Gygax fans, but also perhaps an instructional example for developing a campaign organically from the bottom up, about how quickly and in how much detail to expand the scope of the campaign world, and so on.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 11, 2018 13:04:07 GMT -6
The Players Handbook probably wouldn’t be that interesting, but I’d say the DMG is worth reading. Not for the rules content (of which there isn’t really that much) as for all the essays and anecdotes and lists and tables of random worldbuilding color.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 11, 2018 10:50:27 GMT -6
Gary Gygax absolutely intended and expected that AD&D would and should be run in what Fin describes as the OD&D style - the advice in the DMG all says to run it that way, and that’s certainly the way he ran it himself. All of the extra rules and details are there for three reasons:
Number one is to give the DM a more solid understanding of the hows and whys of the rules so that his or her judgment calls will likely be more in line with what other DMs with the same understanding would do in the same situation - so there’s lots of stuff about things like expected rate of advancement and what level of reward vs risk is appropriate and how spells are granted and what hit points represent and so on. All of that stuff is intended to get the DM into the mind space where they can make judgment calls and additions that are consistent with the spirit of the rules.
Number two is to make player characters more robust generally, and especially other PCs more robust compared to magic-users, but also to slow the pace of advancement in order to lengthen the default campaign. In OD&D a starting character fits on an index card and isn’t much different than any other starting character of the same class (and, if you’re not using the supplements, not even that much different than a starting character of a different class). It’s only at higher levels where characters begin to feel really differentiated and distinct but a lot of characters either (depending on the DM) never make it that far or alternatively are allowed to get there so quickly that big chunks of the rulebooks become almost irrelevant (I.e. if everybody hits “name” level within just a handful of sessions). AD&D adds a lot more detail and flavor to PCs to make them seem more distinctive and fully formed right from the beginning of play, and also to make them more redilient so that, at least as long as the player plays them well, they’re more likely to survive and not be undone by one or two bad rolls. This unquestionably makes the process of creating new characters take longer, and there’s a lot more stuff that needs to be rolled or calculated or chosen and the character details definitely won’t fit on an index card, but all of that was considered a reasonable trade-off, both because most of that calculation and look-up stuff only has to be done once, before play starts, so it doesn’t slow down play, and also because the idea of the “Advanced” game was that at least most of the players would have already experienced the original game and gotten a handle on the basic concepts there so they would be equipped to take on some more depth and detail. Which brings us to...
Number three is that AD&D deliberately added a lot of granular detail both to add flavor and to make the game more tactically complex for “Advanced” players who appreciate that sort of added detail and think it creates a deeper and richer experience. Weapons don’t just have a price and a damage rating, they also have length and speed values that can affect combat and that the players should consider when choosing them. Spells have defined material components that both add flavor (and are sometimes anachronistic jokes) but can also become a logistical concern and a factor in deciding which spells to memorize. Even the morale table demonstrates this - it doesn’t sent just determine whether morale holds or breaks but shows how it breaks - retreat, flee, or surrender - depending on how badly the roll failed. For experienced and advanced players, particularly those who’ve been playing the original game for a while and may have grown jaded or bored with it, this type of added detail and granularity can make the game seem more fresh and challenging and lead to a richer experience and longer campaigns. Yes it can also seem overwhelming, especially if you’re trying to internalize it all at once, and can seem unnecessarily overcomplicated, but the key there is that almost all of it is modular - that the simple OD&D framework is still there underneath and it’s totally within the scope and expected use of AD&D to mix and match which Advanced elements are actually used and which are glossed over, as well as to add more of the options gradually as everyone becomes more comfortable and added detail and granularity feels more attractive. The segment-based surprise rules in AD&D are complex and hard to understand by reading them without seeing a demonstration, and other sections of the rules don’t seem quite compatible with them, even. The game works fine if you just ignore all that and say surprise = one free round of action. But if you do understand it and apply all of the details, then the game becomes more tactical and how to take advantage of surprise becomes something that good players will be able to consider and work with and reap the benefits of, if that’s the flavor of game you want and you think your players will appreciate and enjoy it.
If OD&D can be thought of as more of an idea of a game than an actual game (that it presents a concept, but the DM inevitably ends up as a de-facto co-author by making judgment calls and filling in holes), then AD&D could similarly be thought of as more like a dream of a game - that reading all of the rules with their seemingly endless complexity creates an imaginary world where all of these intertwining parts connect and intertwine, and even though as a practical matter at the table you’re almost certainly not actually going to use all of that complexity, there’s always the dream that you will next time.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 10, 2018 14:01:36 GMT -6
Trial and error experimentation, like in the example of play in the ruleexwhere the players try on random pairs of boots to see if any of them allow silent movement. Intelligent swords will generally tell their owner about their capabilities (unless they don’t want to). Sipping potions tells what they do without triggering the effect (except Poison, of course). Read Magic identifies scrolls and may reveal command words engraved on other items. If the item was taken from an NOC or monster who was using it they might have seen it in action to know what it does ( and what the command words are). Magic-users usually have the command words for their items written in their spell books (likely in magical script). High level characters might use Commune or Contact Higher Plane spells to identify items without using trial and error (and risking cursed items). A wish will certainly identify the functions of a magic item.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 10, 2018 13:34:18 GMT -6
I’ve always gone with 1/2 for skeletons and 1 for zombies - it’s what’s in my 5th printing copy of the rules (I honestly never noticed the difference in the reference sheets) and also in the monster stats summary in Judges Guild’s Ready Ref Sheets. It’s interesting trivia to know that the original intent was 1 and 2 and that the 1/2 apparently arose out of a misreading, but I’m too set in my ways to change
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 10, 2018 13:28:37 GMT -6
I’ve never owned a set of Gamescience dice. I bought a few sets of old-school crappy dice from Noble Knight Games a few years back mostly for “display” purposes, but in general the dice I actually use are various Chessex and Koplow-type dice that I’ve had for 25+ years.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 10, 2018 12:19:57 GMT -6
Do some sample/test calculations outside of play to get a feel for how the system works - how all the situational modifiers play out and what kind of effect they have. Once you’ve got an instinctive feeling for all of that, in practice you come up with an estimated morale value based on the circumstances and then roll against that to determine if the individuals hold, fall back, flee, or surrender.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 9, 2018 14:53:41 GMT -6
Another thing worth noting about the M&TAs: especially at the higher levels the percentage of magical treasure is nowhere close to the 3% suggested in the SR1 table. There are 8 magic item entries on the level 1 list, 9 on the level 2 list, 16 on the level 3 list, and 20-25 per level on levels 4-9 (and, additionally, many of those entries consist multiple magic items - there are several entries on the level 4-6 lists with 2 magic items, some on the level 7-8 lists with 3-4 items, and some on the level 9 list with a half dozen or more items).
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