jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by jacar on Oct 4, 2013 10:31:38 GMT -6
Interesting answers really. I think you "needed" Chainmail to play 0D&D "right." That said, you could just ignore the Chainmail specific stuff and the game would play fine. That's how we did it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2013 15:09:45 GMT -6
I think you "needed" Chainmail to play 0D&D "right." There was, and is, no correct way to play. That's the beauty of the way those rules were written. You were expected to mold it to your ideas. Then, as now ... If you're having fun, you're doing it right.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Oct 5, 2013 5:10:46 GMT -6
I think you "needed" Chainmail to play 0D&D "right." There was, and is, no correct way to play. That's the beauty of the way those rules were written. You were expected to mold it to your ideas. Then, as now ... If you're having fun, you're doing it right. Well obviously most of us did that but I guess now that I am old and looking back on the whole thing I want to know what it was that I was suppose to have been doing. Yes, I think there are parts of the game you can mold or fudge but the combat turn sequence and system of initiative is an important structure of play. To not have that at all described in Men & Magic but its implied usage is interesting. I am not trying to be a game lawyer more a game archaeologist
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2013 10:05:21 GMT -6
I see what you're saying, but I think my basic point still stands. As the afterword said ...
Sure, it's interesting to know how others played the game. Especially the co-authors and those who played in their campaigns (and the campaigns which they, in turn, spawned). I still believe there is no "correct" way to play the game. Mike Mornard was an active participant in those halcyon days of the hobby and his constant refrain says it best, "we made up some [stuff] we thought would be fun." At any rate, good luck in your quest.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 5, 2013 10:52:34 GMT -6
I want to know what it was that I was suppose to have been doing. You were supposed to take the Chainmail campaign you were already playing in or running and apply a bunch of new rules to it to represent the adventuring careers of those figures in greater detail. You were adding a new dimension to an existing campaign. When Gary started getting tons of letters from people who had never played in a wargames campaign before, asking questions about how to play, he was surprised, because D&D hadn't been written for them, and why were so many people who didn't play Chainmail so interested in D&D?So unless you run a Chainmail campaign and integrate the adventuring careers of your major fantasy figures, you're not doing what you were "supposed" to be doing.
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Keith
Level 3 Conjurer
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Post by Keith on Oct 6, 2013 10:25:25 GMT -6
We had a copy, but didn't really know what to do with it.
Many of us had been Avalon Hill war-gamers, so we got the gist of it, but none of us owned miniatures.
This was also 1978, which is out of range of the OP question, but we were down here in Alabama, and the game had not spread as quickly down here as it did in the midwest and northeast.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 345
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Post by jacar on Oct 25, 2013 9:34:20 GMT -6
If you're having fun, you're doing it right. Quite correct! Hence the quotes around "right"!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2013 10:00:44 GMT -6
If you're having fun, you're doing it right. Quite correct! Hence the quotes around "right"! I noted the scare quotes. I still disagreed with the idea stated.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by jacar on Oct 25, 2013 10:22:09 GMT -6
"right"=how Gygax and co originally played it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2013 10:26:16 GMT -6
"right"=how Gygax and co originally played it. I know what you meant. I've made my opinion clear and you have, too, so don't think me rude if I make no more replies in this particular thread of conversation.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 345
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Post by jacar on Oct 25, 2013 11:15:17 GMT -6
"right"=how Gygax and co originally played it. I know what you meant. I've made my opinion clear and you have, too, so don't think me rude if I make no more replies in this particular thread of conversation. I never said you were rude. I just didn't think you got what I was saying. That's all. Clearly I was incorrect in that assumption.
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Post by imredave on Jan 22, 2014 19:44:01 GMT -6
So of the 20+ I played D&D with in '75 only one guy I knew had Chainmail, and he had the wood grain box for his rules as well. After the Greyhawk supplement made the alternate combat system playable on its own, no one much bothered with Chainmail. I did pick up a copy just to be complete (I liked it as miniature rules better than Swords and Spells, but it was sufficiently different from the way we played D&D to not get much use).
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Post by Malchor on Apr 25, 2020 15:00:58 GMT -6
As a historical data point, based on APA-L in Spring 1975 and early A&E, Chainmail was mainly seen as needed for missile resolution (likely missile ranges (Lee Gold said the same to me when asked)). With Greyhawk, missile range is mentioned and many (if not all) of the monster reference to Chanmail are covered in the update blurbs and the errata at the end.
Edit: added a missing ).
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Post by rsdean on Apr 26, 2020 5:04:43 GMT -6
That matches my memory of the situation. There are a few references to monster powers and the like, but missile range is definitely added into the rules in Greyhawk. Personally, I had Greyhawk in my hands within a month or two of getting the 3LBBs, along with all the back issues of the Strategic Review that the hobby shop could supply, so that all contributed to my not feeling the need to use Chainmail as described above in a post from 2013. (?)
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Post by Piper on Apr 26, 2020 9:10:40 GMT -6
I didn't have a copy Chainmail when I bought OD&D in 1975, nor had I seen one. I didn't buy a copy until the late '90s.
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Post by stevemitchell on Apr 26, 2020 12:54:39 GMT -6
We didn't have it, and never felt the loss. We stitched in some things from Arduin and Tunnels & Trolls, and we were open to house rules. So we had fun, our way, and to my mind, that's what was important.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Apr 26, 2020 15:03:25 GMT -6
That matches my memory of the situation. There are a few references to monster powers and the like, but missile range is definitely added into the rules in Greyhawk. Personally, I had Greyhawk in my hands within a month or two of getting the 3LBBs, along with all the back issues of the Strategic Review that the hobby shop could supply, so that all contributed to my not feeling the need to use Chainmail as described above in a post from 2013. (?) Wow, this is fun looking at these old postings!
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