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Post by Ghul on Aug 20, 2011 7:11:01 GMT -6
I have a vast appreciation of the Holmes set, how it captured my young mind and instilled a lifelong passion for D&D. While I find the LBBs more comprehensive, especially as pertains to strongholds, naval battles, etc., if I were to pick one or the other to toss on the table, open up, and begin playing a fresh game, I'd pick the Holmes set every time. Coupled with B1 or B2 (preferably the latter) completes the offering. In fact, that brings to mind an important component of the discussion, IMO. I think if you are going to straight up compare Holmes and the LBBs, you have to include the adventure with the Holmes set, as it is integral to the experience. With B2 included, I not only had adventure material and Gygaxian advice -- I had the groundwork for an entire campaign, and this was invaluable to my development as a DM.
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jjarvis
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Post by jjarvis on Aug 20, 2011 16:45:15 GMT -6
Examples include the modifications to die rolls for character requisites. Gary's rather clumsy "percentage strength" for fighters is gone, as are the varying modifications for most other requsites, that existed in both the LBBs and AD&D. These are replaced by Holmes' more tidy universal modifiers of 13-15=+1, 16-17=+2, etc. Even games that do not follow the exact pattern set by Holmes (such as S&W) give universal modifiers that are similar in effect. Similar clean-ups following the Holmes' pattern are present in every clone I know of. You are in error. The ability modifiers in Holmes are not the tidy universal modifiers you mention here. within the Holmes edited basic rules: DEX of 8 or less is -1 with missiles, 13 or more is +1 with missiles. CON 18 awarded +3 to hp, 17 awarded +2, 15-16 gave a +1 bonus 7-14 no bonus and 6 or less a penalty of -1. That's the extent of all ability related modifiers listed in the Holmes edit.
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Post by gloriousbattle on Aug 20, 2011 18:28:19 GMT -6
Quite so. Those are the Moldvay modifiers I was referring to. I admitted to this several posts ago.
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jjarvis
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Post by jjarvis on Aug 20, 2011 20:34:01 GMT -6
Quite so. Those are the Moldvay modifiers I was referring to. I admitted to this several posts ago. Sure enough but how do you feel that reflects on your original post given the loss of the example?
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Post by Falconer on Aug 20, 2011 21:02:20 GMT -6
In other words, it’s unclear whether you meant this thread to be about Holmes or Moldvay in the first place.
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Post by gloriousbattle on Aug 20, 2011 21:20:18 GMT -6
Quite so. Those are the Moldvay modifiers I was referring to. I admitted to this several posts ago. Sure enough but how do you feel that reflects on your original post given the loss of the example? My example was incorrect, but that is all it was. The game was still nicely cleaned up by Holmes, and the rules were actually made readable, and the game playable without more. You could, even if you had no experience of wargaming or roleplaying, pick up the Holmes book and play D&D. I don't think ANYONE could honestly claim they could do this with the LBBs. For that game to be playable, in addition to the rules, you needed one of the following: 1. Prior experience with, at least, tabletop wargaming, and the idea that a game might exist (a) with or without a board and playing pieces; (b) if it did have a board and playing pieces, that they could have an enormous number of variant forms; (c) the idea that there need be no ultimate goal to the game, i.e. you did not need to checkmate the king or force all the other players to sell their properties and declare bankruptcy or conquer the world; (d) that the game could be focused in a variety of ways, as with simple adventuring or building contacts in the city's underworld or conquering lands and raising armies; (e) the players could play competitively or cooperatively as they chose. None of these things is intuitive to the typical Monopoly or Risk style boardgamer, much of it would have been out of the experience of many miniatures wargamers of the period, and none of this is explained in the LBBs. 2. To be brought in to a session or two of someone else' game, which was the best way to learn and, in fact, the way most people did learn. or 3. Maybe some experience of interactive theater, like the Comedia D'ell Arte, which is probably closer to a roleplaying game than anything else I can think of. Combine this with the fact that some of the errors in the LBBs were just plain bizzare, such as the oft cited "% Liar", and I don't know how anyone could really have understood the things without a mentor. When people claim to have done so, I tend to reply "Oh. Well that's nice.", and change the subject. As an example, when Hargrave created Arduin, he actually thought that "% Liar" was intended to determine how often the monster would lie to the players, and wrote up his own monsters accordingly.
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jjarvis
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Post by jjarvis on Aug 20, 2011 21:29:12 GMT -6
Which means: the present OD&D culture owes a great deal to Holmes' editing and organizational skills.
I started with the Holmes Basic set and bought OD&D books afterward myself. So I'll agree, as did Gary, that a well edited basic set was a useful tool to expose more people to the game.
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Post by darkling on Aug 20, 2011 23:12:05 GMT -6
You could, even if you had no experience of wargaming or roleplaying, pick up the Holmes book and play D&D. I don't think ANYONE could honestly claim they could do this with the LBBs. For that game to be playable, in addition to the rules, you needed one of the following: 1. Prior experience with, at least, tabletop wargaming, and the idea that a game might exist (a) with or without a board and playing pieces; (b) if it did have a board and playing pieces, that they could have an enormous number of variant forms; (c) the idea that there need be no ultimate goal to the game, i.e. you did not need to checkmate the king or force all the other players to sell their properties and declare bankruptcy or conquer the world; (d) that the game could be focused in a variety of ways, as with simple adventuring or building contacts in the city's underworld or conquering lands and raising armies; (e) the players could play competitively or cooperatively as they chose. None of these things is intuitive to the typical Monopoly or Risk style boardgamer, much of it would have been out of the experience of many miniatures wargamers of the period, and none of this is explained in the LBBs. I think you are way off base here. I made my first role playing game when I was in fifth grade (a really clumsy and crude system to play characters in Greek, Roman, & Norse myth which I was kind of scary level obsessed with at the time). That was with no prior experience with role-playing games, having never seen a dice other than six sided, and D&D being a taboo subject in our stupidly conservative Christian moral panic household. And the only board games more complicated than chess or checkers that we had in the house were Monopoly, Risk, and Conquest of the Empire (the last of which served as a world map for us) as inspirations. Not saying I necessarily could have interpreted the LBB or if I had I would have interpreted them the same way as I did when I was first introduced to them several months ago. But don't think to paint us all with the same broad brush, kay? Just because something isn't intuitive to some folk doesn't mean that it doesn't click with others. And I don't think that I am in any way unique.
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Post by cooper on Aug 20, 2011 23:52:47 GMT -6
It's not about intuitive, or how smart you are, 0dd is not fully playable without CHAINMAIL, holmes was 0d&d without the need for CM. 0d&d literally references you to CHAINMAIL often for rulings, it doesn't matter how smart you are if the rules for initiative and the 3 other combat systems are in another book you don't own.
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Post by darkling on Aug 21, 2011 0:34:29 GMT -6
It's not about intuitive, or how smart you are, 0dd is not fully playable without CHAINMAIL, holmes was 0d&d without the need for CM. 0d&d literally references you to CHAINMAIL often for rulings, it doesn't matter how smart you are if the rules for initiative and the 3 other combat systems are in another book you don't own. You don't need CHAINMAIL to play OD&D anymore than you need Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival (not that I wouldn't ever not want another old AH origional *drool*). Show some initiative
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 4:59:55 GMT -6
It's not about intuitive, or how smart you are, 0dd is not fully playable without CHAINMAIL, It most certainly is. OD&D is a complete game in and of itself. Period. End of story.
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Post by gloriousbattle on Aug 21, 2011 6:56:52 GMT -6
Not saying I necessarily could have interpreted the LBB or if I had I would have interpreted them the same way as I did when I was first introduced to them several months ago. But don't think to paint us all with the same broad brush, kay? Ya know, over the last week or so, lots of people just seem to want to get miffed because they can, and I am about to start ignoring posts of this type. To keep it on topic, however, The Complete Book of Wargames boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18531/the-complete-book-of-wargames gave the LBBs a rating LOWER than its lowest possible rating for rules presentation (Rock Bottom). That said, they also stated that, despite its enormous deficiencies, it was the best [rpg] game going. So how about we take these posts for what they are and stop trying to find insults where they don't exist?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 7:38:10 GMT -6
... gave the LBBs a rating LOWER than its lowest possible rating for rules presentation (Rock Bottom). Awww, c'mon! That artwork was amazing! What's not to like? ;D
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Post by badger2305 on Aug 21, 2011 8:10:36 GMT -6
To keep it on topic, however, The Complete Book of Wargames boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18531/the-complete-book-of-wargames gave the LBBs a rating LOWER than its lowest possible rating for rules presentation (Rock Bottom). That said, they also stated that, despite its enormous deficiencies, it was the best [rpg] game going. I think what some people may be objecting to is your perceived-as-sweeping conclusion that it just wasn't possible to learn D&D from the original set without some other prior experience. (This, itself, may be an overstatement of what you are saying, but I suspect that's what people are hearing - or reading, as it were.) But in the particulars of what you are saying, i.e. some wargaming experience, introduction by someone else, or theatre background - historically, there was enough of all of that to make D&D a wild success with just the original three booklets - and I know you would agree with that. That having been said, there are some interesting pieces of data to illuminate this discussion: - I used to game with John M. Ford, the celebrated author. Mike (as he was known to his friends) told me several times about "the Summer of Love" as he impishly referred to it, in 1974, when people were beginning to play D&D. He was fairly sure that he was one of the first people to spread it around in Indiana and Michigan, playing games with friends at IU and elsewhere.
- If you read Arnold Hendrick's review of D&D in The Courier, it's pretty clear that even with a wargaming background, it's possible to not "get" the original set. Mind you, Gary wrote a pretty scathing reply to the review (and that link is probably a copyright violation so look at it quickly), but the point is fairly clear that Mr. Hendrick, an experienced wargamer, didn't "get" D&D. This has also been discussed here and here.
- In the Minnesota Science Fiction Society (or "MinnStF" - don't ask), there was a game called "MinnStf Dungeon." It was a role-playing game, with many of the features of D&D, without the D&D rules. It was based on the experiences of a Twin Cities sf fan who had played D&D at a few conventions in 1973-74, and had brought back his experience of the game and people built their own versions from his accounts. (Interesting to consider that there was a "spin-off" of D&D taking place in the same urban locale as Dave Arneson, without any major social contact between the groups - sf fans and wargamers - that came a little later.)
- I used to teach classes - yes, community education classes - about how to play D&D. For several years, they were packed. I was in college, so it was well after Holmes Basic was released, but even then there were people who wanted to know how to do it "right."
I think what may be causing a lot of fuss and bother here is a logic error in parsing your argument. "In order to understand how to play D&D from the original D&D set, it was necessary to have a wargaming background, or get introduced to it by someone who has a campaign, or have some theatre background" - it's the "necessary" that may be too broad. From a logical perspective, all we then need is one example to invalidate it - but that can also be perceived as quibbling. From a historical perspective, we simply do not know how many people picked up the original D&D set, did not have any of the background factors you've cited, and learned on their own how to play the game. But I have a hard time imagining that the number was zero. So to amend your argument, I would completely agree with you if you had stated "in order to understand how to play D&D with the original it was very helpful to have a wargaming background, or get introduced to it by someone who has a campaign, or have some theatre background" - but even then, no guarantee. I've argued in an article that originally appeared in Shadis magazine that the success of Original D&D was precisely because Original D&D was so vague in some areas - people had to add in their own ideas to make the game work. In my own memory, there was a huge amount of variety in D&D campaigns in the era 1974-1977 - far more than you saw after the introduction of both Holmes and AD&D (I blame the latter), in 1977 and later. So we might also be debating about different values - the value of personal imaginative interpretation versus the value of playing the game as its authors intended. Mind you, in the latter case, I interpret the "author's intent" from the Afterword in Vol. III of Original D&D and not what Gary wrote later - so even that notion is fraught with interpretive peril.
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Post by cooper on Aug 21, 2011 8:13:35 GMT -6
How hard is it to understand that, while you can play ad&d with only the players handbook, you will be at a loss for many rules without the DMG. Chainmail is 0d&d's dmg.
You will not know how to use other combat systems properly (attack as a hero-1, or as 5+1 heavy foot). Some notes won't male sense (cavemen attack as two morningstars?). Or even know some abilities of your character (elves have the abilities as listed in CHAINMAIL)
It's not a slight on your intelligence to say that you can't understand a rule that appears in a different book. If you understand CHAINMAIL, the LLB's actually aren't too difficult to understand, it's for all the people who didn't play CHAINMAIL, that holmes was written.
Let me wuibble with you here. 0d&d is not vague. The reason there was a tonne of variety is that 0d&d explicitely fostered multiple rules. There is not vague about the 4 combat systems for example, it's just that before ad&d took the LLB's and made an "officially sanctioned" rule system, players had many rules to chose from. If you have arneson's FFC, there is nothing remotely vague about barony building for example when the LLB gives a list of things that will grow yiur domain (tourism, lumber, etc). Those are all things addressed in depth and clearly in another book.
But of course holmes is flawed by it's attempt at writing for those without chainmail. A dagger attacks 2/1 per round and a sword attacks 1/1 per round but both do d6 dmg! If one had CHAINMAIL and were using the man to man combat table instead of the alternate table, the rule makes sense as swords strike first in the first round of melee and generally hit twice as often (unless you're stabbing a prone knight through his visor). So even Holmes couldn't excise the need for Chainmail.
Nor are the LLB's an incomplete game. Clear and concise rules for naval warefare, hex crawling, airborne combat and even shooting catapults at flying dragons, The LLB's+CM+FFC is as complete a game, if not moreso, as any that came after.
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Post by badger2305 on Aug 21, 2011 8:25:37 GMT -6
Let me wuibble with you here. 0d&d is not vague. The reason there was a tonne of variety is that 0d&d explicitely fostered multiple rules. ...and with THAT, I believe we ARE quibbling. I hear what you are saying, but I also have read Arnold Hendrick's review. He clearly did not get it, and from people I know who were experienced wargamers, and encountered OD&D, he wasn't completely alone. Mike Ford used to say to me, "Original D&D wasn't so much a set of rules as a set of notes towards a set of rules" - but that left room for people to make sense of it for themselves. Which is exactly what Gary intended in the Afterword to Vol. III - "for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!" (I would also submit that this is not the same as in Holmes Basic, which ends without any sort of similar exhortation.)
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Post by gloriousbattle on Aug 21, 2011 9:31:06 GMT -6
But in the particulars of what you are saying, i.e. some wargaming experience, introduction by someone else, or theatre background - historically, there was enough of all of that to make D&D a wild success with just the original three booklets - and I know you would agree with that. ABSOLUTELYI LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! I LOVE OD&D! It has been my absolute favorite game for the past 30+ years. All other games I have played combined have never given me as much enjoyment as tis one has. I hated that TSR killed it only to ressurect it in increasingly inferior versions, and so was overjoyed when I discovered the clones. OD&D was a masterpiece. However, it was a FLAWED masterpiece, and there is no point denying it. It was full of brilliant ideas, but that brilliance was couched in lousy writing and worse editing. No serious argument can be made otherwise. But some want to turn the LBBs into some sort of holy tome that was perfect from the word go, I guess because it was divinely inspired. "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." -Revelations 22:19 The second you even mention that the least change might have been helpful, there are people who take that statement on the same level that they would if you had just insulted their mothers. As to whether people are perceiving me as overbroad because I essentially said NO ONE could get it without some outside help, or at least experience? Well, I suppose someone, somewhere might have done so, but I never met him. I've had this conversation with many people, and the agreement was, in my experience, universal that it wasn't written well enough to be played straight out of the box. I gave my own example in another thread. I knew one kid who bought it, couldn't figure it out, got his algebra teacher to try to help him, and she couldn't figure it out either. So, as with me, his sat idle for a long time before he got invited to join another game. He was the brightest kid in school at the time, and the algebra teacher was no dummy, and neither were any of the others I met with similar tales of woe. So, I suppose there might have been somebody somewhere, and I'll retract the word "necessary" if you like, but, let's just say I never met the guy face to face.
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Post by badger2305 on Aug 21, 2011 9:50:31 GMT -6
Well, yes, but there's that paradox in being a "flawed masterpiece." Could the Original D&D set been written with greater clarity and precision? Sure. Could the Original D&D set provided more of an idea about how Gary and Dave played? Probably. Would greater clarity and more information about the home campaigns affect how people learned the game? Probably. Would that greater clarity and more information narrowed the imaginative scope of the game? Possibly. I would submit that the fact that we have different viewpoints about "how to play the game" based in part on which set did people start with, Holmes Basic or Original D&D, is proof that "what's better?" is mostly subjective. Put another way, there are - very broadly speaking - two different views of the game, based on which rules set you started with - Original D&D: endless possibilities, no additional rules needed (not even Chainmail), but also some areas of ambiguity that required personal interpretation. This requirement actually reinforces the emphasis on creative input.
- Holmes Basic: greater clarity and more information about author's intent (specifically Gary; Dave was not really in the loop at that time). This provided more of a framework of "how to play the game" but also focused (or narrowed, depending on how you see it) the scope of the game. The need for rules past 3rd level ended up getting muddled in the existence of AD&D and OD&D, further muddled by Moldvay and Mentzer.
...so we're back to "how were YOU introduced to the game?" I never really played Holmes Basic - when I was a kid, it was seen as "D&D for people who needed Cliff's Notes." But I can't deny that LOTS of people were introduced to D&D via Holmes Basic, and for them, THAT is what the game was. So it's a pretty subjective thing - and I doubt we're going to be able to resolve it. I would also note that various efforts to write a definitive retro-clone of OD&D, e.g. S&W White Box Edition, are in essence attempts to square this circle by providing the clarity of Holmes Basic while retaining the possibilities of OD&D. Frankly, I think it's a good idea - but also a kind of Xeno's Paradox.
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Post by gloriousbattle on Aug 21, 2011 10:01:17 GMT -6
Well, yes, but there's that paradox in being a "flawed masterpiece." Dude, I've given quite a bit in this argument, but, come on, you have to give a little too. How is "% Liar" for "% Lair" not a flaw? As to flawed masterpiece being a paradox? Nah. That description has been applied to Bosch's Tryptich, Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, and many other works of great brilliance, that nonetheless had some "What the Hell was he thinking when he wrote THAT?" moments. I would also note that various efforts to write a definitive retro-clone of OD&D, e.g. S&W White Box Edition, are in essence attempts to square this circle by providing the clarity of Holmes Basic while retaining the possibilities of OD&D. Frankly, I think it's a good idea - but also a kind of Xeno's Paradox. Depends on who you talk to. I think Labyrinth Lord, with it's companion pieces, are better than anything Gary ever wrote. Does that system owe everything to Gary? Yes. Is it exactly what OD&D was? No, but if it was, it couldn't be better. Of course, your mileage may vary, but to say that Gary got everything exactly right the first time around (and I don't know that this is what YOU are saying) would be ludicrous.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 10:02:35 GMT -6
Nor are the LLB's an incomplete game OD&D is a complete game, as my experience with it and many, many other will attest. I heard about the game on a Monday or Tuesday, bought it on Friday, and started a campaign on a Sunday night that lasted for years. Using nothing but what was in that box.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 10:06:50 GMT -6
As to whether people are perceiving me as overbroad because I essentially said NO ONE could get it without some outside help, or at least experience? Well, I suppose someone, somewhere might have done so, but I never met him. I've had this conversation with many people, and the agreement was, in my experience, universal that it wasn't written well enough to be played straight out of the box. When you're speaking to me, you are speaking to someone who did exactly that. And, as far removed as Texas is from where the game developed, I played in other campaigns that started the same way. There is nothing holy about the books, as you've put it. But it is a bit frustrating to hear folks who weren't around back then telling us who were the way things were.
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Post by badger2305 on Aug 21, 2011 10:12:21 GMT -6
Of course, your mileage may vary, but to say that Gary got everything exactly right the first time around (and I don't know that this is what YOU are saying) would be ludicrous. You're right. I'm NOT saying that. I think you're missing my point, subtle though they may be.
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Post by gloriousbattle on Aug 21, 2011 10:22:42 GMT -6
As to whether people are perceiving me as overbroad because I essentially said NO ONE could get it without some outside help, or at least experience? Well, I suppose someone, somewhere might have done so, but I never met him. I've had this conversation with many people, and the agreement was, in my experience, universal that it wasn't written well enough to be played straight out of the box. When you're speaking to me, you are speaking to someone who did exactly that. And, as far removed as Texas is from where the game developed, I played in other campaigns that started the same way. There is nothing holy about the books, as you've put it. But it is a bit frustrating to hear folks who weren't around back then telling us who were the way things were. I got into the game in 1979. That probably comes close to qualifying me.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 10:27:17 GMT -6
I got into the game in 1979. That probably comes close to qualifying me. Well, then I'm a bit unclear as to how you never met anyone able figure the rules out on their, I must confess. Not because I can't conceive there are folks who can't, mind you, but that you've never met anyone who didn't. I'm sure you've already stated this but the information is getting lost in the signal-to-noise ratio of this thread but ... was Holmes' boxed set your first exposure to the game?
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Post by gloriousbattle on Aug 21, 2011 10:38:11 GMT -6
I got into the game in 1979. That probably comes close to qualifying me. Well, then I'm a bit unclear as to how you never met anyone able figure the rules out on their, I must confess. Not because I can't conceive there are folks who can't, mind you, but that you've never met anyone who didn't. I'm sure you've already stated this but the information is getting lost in the signal-to-noise ratio of this thread but ... was Holmes' boxed set your first exposure to the game? No. My first set was the LBBs. Couldn't figure 'em out. To me, a rulebook was about rules, not suggestions. You didn't occasionally just move the chess knight three squares diagonally, but as the rules specified. Maybe it's an Ohio thing. Once I did play the game, and figured them out, I enjoyed them immensely. But let me turn this one around. You are saying that you had no prior experience of wargaming, but just walked into the store one day after hearing about this game, opened the box, and started playing?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 10:53:10 GMT -6
I had a moderate amount of experience with hex and chit wargames, though I was terrible at them. I was awful at Chess, too, though I loved to play.
I had minimal experience with miniature wargaming, maybe 3 to 4 hours.
By the time D&D was published, I had quit playing wargames. Nobody wanted to play with me because I really wasn't much of a challenge.
Making sense of the extensive rules sets of those games, however, perhaps this is what indirectly helped me pick my way through OD&D. I can't say. After all, that is more than a few years ago and plenty of water under the bridge since them. All I know is, two days after I bought the set I ran a six hour gaming session.
Were we doing everything "right"? Heck if I know. We sure had a lot of fun, though.
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Post by gloriousbattle on Aug 21, 2011 11:08:24 GMT -6
I had played some Avalon Hill Starship Troopers and Tactics II with my brother, that was about it. I had never even heard of minis wargaming at that point.
Interestingly, though, Strship Troopers could probably have been turned into an rpg with a page of additional rules. The chits represented one man or monster, the troopers each got to select their weapons, there was a system for various levels of wounds, and the bugs fought from their tunnels into which the troopers had to go exploring to grab the brain bug (dungeon? monster? treasure?). If someone had just said "This D&D thing is just like Starship Troopers, except you draw your own maps, put your treasures where you want, and you play your character in a ''let's pretend' manner, like cops and robbers," the whole thing probably would have clicked for me.
In any case, I think the fact that you had at least some tabletop minis experience was probably crucial, even if it didn't seem so. Just the fact that you were in a game that had designed its own armies and boards was more than I had done.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2011 12:12:19 GMT -6
It's not about intuitive, or how smart you are, 0dd is not fully playable without CHAINMAIL, It most certainly is. OD&D is a complete game in and of itself. Period. End of story. Quick synopsis: - Some people think OD&D is complete without Cahinmail, others think it's only complete with Chainmail.
- Some people could understand the LBB when they read them, others could not.
Can we just get over it? What we have here are a couple of sets of opinions with no middle ground. And no number of "you're another" posts will make the other one believe what you believe. Remember that "discussion" is not the same as persuasion. We don't need to persuade others that we're right. We're here to discuss a fun game.
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Post by Falconer on Aug 21, 2011 12:16:53 GMT -6
gloriousbattle— You’re entitled to your opinions, but IMHO it’s in poor taste to come to an OD&D board and continuously make posts stating that other games (Basic/LL) are better than OD&D.
cooper— Plenty of us play OD&D without Chainmail and without FFC. There’s nothing wrong with that.
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Post by cooper on Aug 21, 2011 12:30:05 GMT -6
I agree, all of the players here are sophisticated gamers who don't need chainmail to tell the ability of elves to hide in the wilderness, nor any other rule. We have the benefit of 30 years of knowledge, even at the time players were free to make up what ever they wanted. My only point was that some rules were left out of the LLBs because they were already written down in another book, players were free to make up an alternate rule or ignore the reference. Just as ad&d is totally playable without the DMG.
But it takes some juggling to figure out how to run a battle of 50 heavy foot vs. 80 light foot bandits without chainmail and you have to ignore some references (hero+1). I didn't say the game is unplayable, only incomplete. And even then only "incomplete" if you care to have mass combat be an option in your games.
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