Question for gronan or others that OD&D in the day

[bestialwarlust]

Combat did you or do you use the Alternative or the chainmail rules back in the day?

What about now which do you prefer and why?

[Deleted]

I'm not Mike (Gronan) but I did play BitD ...

We used the alternative combat system.

Though I owned many wargames back then I did not own a copy of Chainmail, so I used the system included in the box with the intention of picking up a copy of CM my next trip to the big city (about 80 miles away).

It worked out so well for us I never bothered getting CM for many years. While I'm certain Chaimail would have influenced my Shattered Lands campaign, after much study of CM I must say I don't believe using it would have improved our fun factor at all. YMMV.

[bestialwarlust]

Thanks for the input. I specified him because I knew he was one of the players from the early days but anyone who has is good. I'm just curious to see if any one did use CM and decieded to switch or if they preferred it.

[Finarvyn]

We abandoned Chainmail when OD&D came out and used the alternate combat system.

[aldarron]

Heh, I asked Mike the same question a couple years ago. He answered the same thing Rob Kuntz and Gygax himself have said, namely that CHAINMAIL combat was not used for D&D gameplay.

All the evidence points to Arneson having brought some kind of "Alternative" system with him when he introduced Gary and Rob to his FRPG gaming in Blackmoor when he and Dave Megarry went to Lake Geneva in the fall of '72 (November, according to Rob). The very next day, Gary began to run his own games with his kids and Don Kaye and was apparently using his own Alternate system.

It's not at all clear how similar the tables were to what we know of now. Arneson almost certainly had a table using percentiles and whether characters were graded in to the familiar levels or just 3 (flunky, hero, superhero) on his table also is a mystery. You can see a version of the Alternate table that from a draft I believe Arneson was using in '73 here odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=blackmoor&action=display&thread=2740&page=9

At this point, no way to know if it was the table he used in '72 or not. I'd guess not, but that's just a guess.

[bestialwarlust]

Interesting so it seems that the alternative really is the preferred approach, at least BitD. Thanks for the input.

[noffham]

It's what my group always used.

[Deleted]

Oct 21, 2011 8:54:00 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Heh, I asked Mike the same question a couple years ago. He answered the same thing Rob Kuntz and Gygax hinself have said, namely that CHAINMAIL combat was not used for D&D gameplay.

Correct. I don't know what Dave used that early, but Gary used d20s the very first time I played.

I still use that system; CHAINMAIL is great for miniatures combat but I feel it's too "cut and dried" for an RPG. Also, I know the 'alternate' system by heart.