A magic user may have only had 1-4 hit points and only 1 spell at first level, but chances are he was the only literate one in the entire group. Reading maps, or ancient glyphs on dungeon walls warning of danger made him a valuable member.
In the early versions of D&D I played (e.g. BECMI), the rules said that Magic Missiles never missed. The spell Sleep was much more powerful gan Magic Missile against most monsters in low level games. That rule book you read may not have made the following clear, but it was wise for 1st level characters to use their wits to prevail in encounters. E.g. bring oil flasks to burn in front of enemies and use missile weapons against them, sneak around and use deception to get tough monsters away from their treasure, open a door just enough to shoot several bows at enemies in a surprise attack without the enemies being able to fight back, set up trip wires, broken glass and other traps and and then lure enemies into those traps, etc..
I still love AD&D, it's a real sentimental attachment, for all its many faults. Besides, I and everyone I knew back then modified rules according to need, since we weren't playing in tournaments. We always took the rules as suggestions for creating our own role-playing game.
@@valethemajor Holmes Basic *was* Basic. The first one. Primarily a compilation of earlier rules, with some updates, and presented as a lead-in to AD&D. It was revised again to form the second Basic set, when TSR was trying to prove AD&D was a different game and therefore they didn’t have to pay Dave Arneson. While AD&D certainly has better rules, Holmes Basic and Keep on the Borderlands still form the basis on how I run a game. AD&D just provided more meat.
Old D&D was AWESOME. It is the job of the Dungeon Master to make changes and interpretations. I never had a problem with the game "making sense." It's a game. Have fun with it. I actually miss the old D&D. Nice, simple rules. Easy to learn, easy to play. And not all weapons do 1d6!
+TheLoyalOfficer I'd say that the rules for D&D were relatively easy to learn for their time. Personally, I played AD&D at the time because the rules were more fleshed-out, if quite a bit more complicated than those in the basic game. AD&D also didn't suffer from so many glaring logic holes (such as the one with weapon damage and speed, as pointed out by our dynamic narrator). But yes, the point of a game is to have fun (unless you live in Nevada, where it means gambling). I learned pretty quickly not to focus excessively on the rules, since that usually resulted in boredom.
Well, i prefer that every nornal weapon does 1d6 damage, because it represent the concept: a stab with a dagger straight to the troath can kill you in the same way a warhammer hits on a head Can I'm italian, my english is not perfect
Really the old school D&D books were naive and simple but still fun. 3.5ed and Pathfinder are just so stacked with rules that it bogs it down too much.
I'm a bit late, but I personally love Pathfinder. There's a ton of rules because there's a ton of content. There's just so much personalization and customization opportunity.
He says "it was terrific fun" playing D&D back in the day. What more do you want from a "game". As we overthink the "game", we expect it to make more sense. This is a common experience and starting in the 1970s designers have responded with lots of rules for a more "realistic" game. Eventually many of us come full circle and start to realize, "Hey, it's a game. Let's just have some fun with it!"
@@mallman23 Some players expect to be able to use the rules as written and design their character around using those rules. I have tried modifying 3.5 and especially 5e to give an "older game" feel and get push back from my players who really want rules as written. I find it simpler to just play the older edition...rules as written. 😁
In BECMI if you got yourself some land you'd get the gold from just being a good ruler. You literally could build XP farms and still adventure. That aspect of the game, and the play style at the levels beyond that have been lost in modern RPGs. D&D has never been great at dungeon crawling, but it was really fun at dominion/dynasty building, mass combat, and gave an easy pathway for legacy characters and role playing as your original character's offspring. BECMI is the only D&D I play.
@@ericheckenkamp6091 You didn't get experience for obtaining gold , you got experience from gold by removing it from monster/ encounters as part of the experience reward so you couldn't just set up gold farms and get experience that way . Page 128 in the d&d rules cylopedia under experience from treasure explains it in greater detail as to why you can't " gold farms " like you said
@miniwars123 The 'thou' instead of 'you' thing is wrong in so many ways. For one thing, it is daft that only one character class speaks with the language of a certain period. For another, 'thou' was singular and 'you' was plural, so one was not a replacement of the other.
It's easy to look back and see all the flaws, but it was groundbreaking at its time, plowing into completely new territory. For what it started and accomplished, it's forever beloved in its imperfect perfection.
Those early D&D rules were not so much as rules but suggestions. When I played there was a great deal of leeway and creative problems and solutions. Loved it. Stopped playing when the rules got too strict and regimented.
You can find Retro Clones of original D&D and AD&D and they do clean up the rules and make everything work among the different sets (i.e. Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Imortal.) Every once in a while I look at them than think, "I should run that again." but overall I can never bring myself to run another game using O D&D or 1E AD&D. There are just so many more systems that are better in both simulation and escapism.
interestingly, in the real original D&D (this one here is one of later iterations..There were many...) there was no such thing as slower/faster weapons. Lindybeige just got the wrong version.
You are quite right and spot on on that. The early systems were rough translations of miniature wargames (unit vs unit combat style) compressed to personal level. It makes very little sense, but is fun. My favorite being AD&D 2nd Edition, cause it really was a more narrative game, which has much more to do with Call of Cthulhu in GAMEPLAY department then anything else. Essentially it's a very lethal game where you spend much more time talking about what you do, then actually fighting and rolling. The system itself was compressed even further to make the math minimalistic and everything fluent. Was it a realistic combat system? Oh, hell no. Was it fun? Sure it was! In both cases the gameplay looked like this: the player describes what character tries to do, say, etc. GM and players roll respective tests and then GM narrates the outcome, with little regard to aditional modifiers. It was lite-RP system, despite it being called Advanced. THAC0 was a beautiful solution as well. If you look at third edition and on, it's this craze of adding and adding more shit to calculations, cause someone thought if we get two pools: DC, TN, AC or whatever you call them, and to-hit/skill modifier, and those pools will be competing against each other, that would be simpler than subtracting AC from THAC0... But in the end, as you approach like 8th level in your campaign, got some additional stuff, magic, weapons, etc. You end up spending more and more time summing up all the to-hit bonuses and all the AC bonuses... It becomes really tedious. The Beauty of THAC0 was, that you start subtracting big numbers from it to calculate your chance to hit, but as you progressed and enemy AC improved, you subtracted less and less, till it eventually reached 0, meanwhile making space for positive modifiers, like ones from magic or other effects on the opposite side, meaning the calculations remained always elegantly small - it was a big abstract, but it worked... it worked and felt better then RoleMaster's long silent minutes of going through dozen of tables as the action pauses constantly and combat drags and drags and drags... Which is actually my biggest gripe with 3rd edition, something I could never understand... At early levels it works fine, but the further we go in, the more HP to chop down, the longer the encounters, the more the math, the slower whole session is and then it drags, oh my friggin god, it draaags endlessly. Anyway, eventhough combat system is rubbish for the most part, I have no issue with it if I approach it as from a board-game sort of perspective, accept the huuuge amounts of abstract rules, it's overall fun and that's quite paramount.
+Chris McWilliams I suppose, but I don't understand who would ever design a game and have such clearly superior weapons. It's not even like there was any mistakes they could make when designing the weapons. There are no incomparable to mess up. It's literally just this does twice as much damage as this which does twice as much damage as this. Nothing else. I don't think I've ever heard of another game with such obviously appalling imbalances lol
I'm definitely not claiming that any type of game design is easy. Not at all! I'm actually designing and developing a game as well. Though it's more of an action game, with some RPG inspirations. (If you're interested, it's called Helheim. you can check us out by looking up turmoniousgames & helheim, we have a website and some gameplay vids :D) All I was saying was that... that particular mistake seems so entirely glaringly obvious. I don't know if there's anything else in that rule book that would make the actual combat mechanics differ from what lindybeige said.... but going based on what he said, all weapon classes have the same damage. Very fast weapons are faster, and hit more times. Medium weapons are slower, and hit less times. Big weapons were even slower and hit less time. However, there's no rules that give any advantages to them. So, everything is exactly the same... except they're slower. If that's the case, I think it's pretty easy to see the design flaw at a glance :P That's all I was saying. If there's any more depth to it that I'm not aware of, then maybe there's a reason they made the mistake... but as far as I can tell (with what little info I have.. which is from this video) it seems pretty straight forward in this case.
Sal Hanus Oh yeah, it seems really unbalanced. :) I can only assume it was due to inexperience or maybe it was a case of 'seemed like a good idea at the time'. I will have to check that out thanks. I haven't really set up and internet presents for mine and I'm not really ready for that. I am looking for testers and have considered online testing as my old group is scattered these days.
Chris McWilliams I suppose, I just don't get how having 3 weapon classes each strictly worse than the next, could ever been seen as a good idea :P I don't know though, maybe it's just hard to imagine for me. I've been playing and designing games since I was 6 years old lol (when I was very young, I wanted to be a marine biologist.. then I got scared of decompression sickness and decided that I wanted to make virtual worlds instead lol) Yeah, having an online play method definitely makes it far easier to test games. Though, with table top games that aren't specifically designed around being played well in a digital environment, it can be frustrating to sort of "port" the experience, heh.
Yes, the first D&D sucked......So did the first camp fire, the first wheel the fist car, the first plane, the first helicopter, and yes the first sword......They all sucked, but they were awesome simply because they were the first of their kind
Very late to this, but in the the early early days you would have several mini manuals that you were supposed to put together, they were flying by the seat of their pants and most of the game was spread between 5 different manuals, with content from TSR to fill out the gaps coming in monthly publications. What Lindy has is a piece of the BECMI era - this stuff is before AD&D (1st edition). The rules are incomplete because the game was incomplete.
SyncopatedFin That is true, but it was 1-2 years between 3-5 level sets of the rules. Basic was around for quite some time before Expert was published and then there was quite some time before Companion was finally released. By the time Master came out the game was pretty well eclipsed by Advanced. And Immortals was just stupid. However, like all iterations of D&D there have been die hard adherents and you can get retro-clones of BECMI with all the errors finally corrected. Interestingly, a number of the mechanics that appeared inlate 1E and 2E AD&D were tested in BECMI D&D, most notably the Proficiency system.
Old DnD could be bad (the weapon rules you mentioned), but if you've got a good DM it's a lot easier to explain quickly than more interesting systems or the Spreadsheet of 4th Ed.
The weapons made more sense if you applied the weapon type table from the Greyhawk supplement (which adapted the man-to-man rules from Chainmail to D&D). Picking a two-handed sword instead of a dagger actually mattered. Although, I don't remember the original system having multiple attacks until AD&D...where's that from?
YOU HAD DICE!!!!!!!!!!!!! We used the numbered chits that you cut out and picked from paper cups (that you had to supply).....sorry...>DICE were for those rich pieces of crap from the fancy side of the tracks.
+TheDarkOne629 You get more missiles with every couple of levels of experience. Not sure about them automatically hitting each time. Maybe it just one of that does at and the are based on a die roll or the damage rolled. Long time I since played.
+vidstarr I know that the mage gets more missiles every few levels. Unfortunatly I could not find it in the "Men & Magic" book of Original D&D. Sorry, I should not have judged so early. :) In AD&D 1e and 2e it said "... and unerringly strike their target". Sadly I only played AD&D 1 and 2...
Yep, I played 2nd Edition Advanced D&D and then 3rd, I also brought most of source books for 4th, but never played. Dragon-Lance, Forgotten Realms, Dark-Sun, Spell-Jammer.... Yet, I didn't find out about the advantages of Magic-Missile, until I played the SSI made pc games, Pools of Radience, Secret of the Seven Silver Blades and Gateway to the Savage Frontier. I nearly always pick that as the first spell when creating a Magic-User for my party of hero's. Cheers
+TheDarkOne629 He is looking at the Holmes 1977 version of D&D, where yes you rolled to hit with Magic Missile: "Roll the missile fire like a long bow arrow (Missile Fire Table)."
your not kidding, my first guy, a fighter, died because he drank two potions back to back....apparently when the two mixed they exploded in his stomach...both were healing type potions....idiot rules
That would actually be pretty amusing... if the potion system was explained beforehand by the DM. A toxin system similar to The Witcher games would be interesting to apply, but I guess that's up to house rules, rather than the main game.
We were much more creative with our games then what you are describing. Although I don't think we ever thought about why is that "that way" in our designs. But definitely did not stick to perfect square halls and rooms.
Thank you for your recollection of this early version of D&D. As an American, my first version of D&D was that second blue book you were showing. The weird thing is that even though the rules were absolutely horrible, I still have tremendous nostalgia for that version and in many ways it defines what I think D&D should be: 4 races (Human, Halfling, Dwarf, Elf) and 4 classes (fighter, magic-user [or equivalent], thief [or equivalent], and cleric [or equivalent]). I'm not saying it's a logical reaction. It's an emotional one.
Edgar Francis Nobody who got seriously into roleplaying ever played D&D (or Traveller) strictly `by the book`. The just used the rules as a framework to hang a story narrative onto. All the good DM`s I had anything to do with knew when to throw the rules away, fudge the dice rolls and `wing it`.
In a book that size, they could have fitted far better rules. Who would praise a rules system that was only good enough for one game? Besides, lots of people played it a lot.
@Catachan1brainleaf It's a bit fuzzy. First there was D&D, and then there was AD&D (which later got called "1st Ed"). My first basic D&D was in fact not what was later launched as "Basic D&D" but instead a simplified game which was meant to be an introduction to the forth-coming AD&D.
All the editions, save for 4th, have their ups and downs, they have unique systems such as THAC0 which is hard to get your head around but once you learn it it actually allowed for both agility based dodging AC. Ultimately, the 1st and 2nd edition had one rule that the newer editions lack, rule 0, anything the DM says, goes, which helps a ton when dealing with power gamers and rules lawyers to allow for a more fluid, Role playing experience. And 4th edition is just an MMORPG on paper with awesome rulesets such as swinging your sword hard once per day, or your rogue magically dashing through a line of enemies and making them attacking themselves with no reasoning what so ever of how it works.
FROM: waysoftheearth Moderator The Story of "Magic Missle" Here's how the Magic Missile spell plays out through the iterations of D&D... Original D&D (Gygax & Arneson) 1974 Not present. OD&D + Greyhawk (Gygax) 1975 Roll to hit*, 2-7 dam, no save, 150ft. Add 2 missiles/5 levels. -- Basic (Holmes) 1977 -- Roll to hit*, 2-7 dam, no save, 150ft. Higher level casters throw more missiles. -- Basic/Expert (Moldvay) 1981 -- Auto hit, 2-7 dam, no save, 150ft. Add 2 missiles/5 levels. -- Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal (Mentzer) 1983 -- Auto hit, 2-7 dam, no save, 150ft. Add 2 missiles/5 levels. -- D&D Rules Cyclopedia (Allston & Schend) 1991 -- Auto hit, 2-7 dam, no save, 150ft. Add 2 missiles/5 levels. Advanced D&D (Gygax) 1978 Auto hit, 2-5 dam, no save, 60ft +10ft/level. Add 1 missile/2 levels. AD&D 2nd Edition (Cook) 1989 Auto hit, 2-5 dam, no save, 60ft +10ft/level. Add 1 missile/2 levels (max 5). D&D 3rd Edition (Cook, Tweet & Williams) 2000 Auto hit, 2-5 dam, no save, 100ft +10ft/level. Add 1 missile/2 levels (max 5). D&D 3.5th Edition (Cook, Tweet & Williams) 2003 Auto hit, 2-5 dam, no save, 100ft +10ft/level. Add 1 missile/2 levels (max 5). * Greyhawk doesn't state that a hit roll is required, or that the missile hits automatically. It merely says the magic missile is equivalent to a magic arrow. The Holmes edit, however, states explicitly that a longbow roll is required on the missile fire table. Magic Missile appears, perhaps, to be most potent under the B/X --> BECMI --> Cyclopedia series of rules where it has long range, auto-hits, and deals 2-7 damage against monsters with eight-sided hit die.
(1:30) You can't just replace "you" with "thou" and think you're done. "thou" is just singular nominative you, that is, the second person equivalent of "he". The equivalent to "him" would be "thee", and to "his" would be "thy". So "Did you see that?" becomes "Did thou see that?". However, "Do I know you?" becomes "Do I know thee?". And finally, "Is this your sword?" becomes "Is this thy sword?". But it doesn't end there! You got the plural you as well, being ye/you/your. So when you talk to a group of people: "What group are you?" becomes "What group are ye?". "Do we know you?" becomes "Do we know you?", and "Is this your banner?" becomes "Is this your banner" ... those two last ones remain the same.
Well argued, yes. The very first D&D had some very heavy gaming mechanics issues but it was the very first tabletop RPG that came out based mostly on actual 'roleplaying' as opposed to dry combat (one of the negative aspects of 4E) and it is still remembered fondly and admired as a classic!
That was the version of D&D that I started playing with. There wasn't even any dice. It came with "Chits" that you cut out and put in a cup that you would just shake and pick for your dice roll.
Thing about the mages - they were supposed to be puny at level 1. Not all classes have to be at the same power level at every level. You can have some power spikes (or some utility spells) at diffrent times, this way instead of making everyone in the party being as strong as each other at level 1, and then increasing their power level by 20%, this way you have very dull mechanics that quite often cant bring anything new to the table. On the other hand, if you have - for example - warriors that are clearly the best of them all at level 1, and getting their next advantage at level 5 (some perk etc.), give rogue some kind of badass perk at level 2, and give mage fireball at level 3, etc., this way you can have party that can know their strenghts and weaknesses, and actually make class stacking less viable - as their power lows would stack onto each other and make party need to really know what they are dealing with. Lethality? You can have great very lethal campaing too - i find 3 checks in further editions kinda lame (but lets face it, static -10hp rule get kinda stupid at higher levels). And yeah, DnD rules were kinda shit. They still quite often are kinda shitty, and DM have to do tons of the work on the fly, but lets face it - 1ed wasn't finished, if you want to look at principles of 1ed you should look at "patched" version - 2ed.
I started with the second printing of the 1st edition. I had no clue how to even start until I ran into some people who were already playing - and they weren't playing like anyone plays today. But it was amazing - and games, like works of fiction, only have to be internally consistent.
@lindybeige To my knowledge, it's very rare that most role-play sessions are even completed and they almost always end due to an argument between the game master and at least one or several players.
1st edition was great in that it was about your imagination and storytelling ability. I wound up with a BA in English , a minor in History and a minor in law thanks to first addition. My husband played 2nd edf and he talks about worlds that were pregenned
I think it is more accurate to state OD&D was not as comprehensive as later editions. The original game was not garbage. In fact, in the late 60s and early 70s, it was quite amazing. Most of your concerns of those early games were easily rectified by a good DM with imagination. As Gary and Dave said many times, if something didn't make sense or was missing then 'make it up!' Arguably, that is an element of what is missing in 5e today as so much is defined it leaves little to the imagination.
If you look at the first edition like you would other role playing games with simple rules I think it suggests heavy role playing and smudging the rules a fair bit, then again a lot of modules were dungeon crawls like rogue or nethack so thats where the deadly lvl 1 starts come in.
the thing i enjoy about OD&D is that 1st level characters have to literally fight to survive and grow in power. Nothing is handed to you, you must earn every spell every hit point. You can really feel your character grow and appreciate everything you have because you earned it. Newer D&D seems more geared towards combat and if that is what you like then cool. I don't think I would out rightly call any system rubbish as each system might have a style or approach that suits certain type of players.
Even chess has some odd rules. En passant, castling queenside, and stalemate to name a few. When I was learning to play, I could command a dominating lead only to forget to leave my opponent's king a safe square to move to. So we tie? Great tactical game, but nothing is perfect except for storms.
I agree that first edition D&D had some pretty stupid rule sets in it but the attitude he takes in this video is sadly typical of modern, table-top roleplayers. First off, a character's value to the party isn't solely based on his worth in combat. Wizard player characters may have been largely useless in combat but they would be much more fun to roleplay. Y'know try talking the Duke into your adventure plan with a gruff, uneducated fighter character. One of the first adventure modules I remember playing had a bored orc, sentry. You could avoid a really tough fight just by having a character who had the skill to speak to him in a friendly way. Secondly, the guys penning the original D&D assumed that people would be making up lots of rules on their own. The source books are mostly just a guide to get you started. One of the books my father gave me even says, right in the preface, that you should just throw the rules out altogether if they're not fun for your group. I'm not trying invalidate anything that Lindy says here. I just wanted to point some things out :)
shouldn't every character should be fun to play in and out of combat? Why make the Wizard rubbish in combat and *only* good somewhere else? The argument that this is a game is the best for a combat ready wizard, isn't it? The players regardless of the character should have the potential to have in and outside of combat. The decisions that wizards can not have a sword have been made, because certain game designers wanted to make sure if a player wanted to use fancy spells, they should stick to that and do not use a sword after throwing a few fire balls into the enemy. What's the point of having a "just" sword wielding babarian otherwise? So the game designers thought they would have the obligation to limit the rules, so they would not have player groups with only sword wielding magicians running around and zapping the antagonists in the prepared dungeons before bashing the smouldering remains with their swords. But I don't like to be restricted without any obvious and logical reason, so I tend to not like class based rule systems. Additionally I don't like any illogical and senseless restrictions. I once played vampire (even played Shadowrun for some time and I'm sure I'll find some more systems many people will go very "AAARGH" in my gaming history :) as stated, I don't like being restricted, so I will give everything a fair shot and try it out :) ). There the GM was sending us into a dungeon with expected resistance from an unfriendly group of vampires. My character had some military background and obviously I had access to military weapons like sub-machine guns (my character had one, so I presumed he got some sort of source for it) and ... grenades additionally the GM agreed when my character was buying some. So I organised my group to went through this dungeon like this: one opening the door of the next room, two others throwing in grenades, then after the bang bangs we enter with readied sub-mps and finished of the resistance. After a few rooms and some high level enemies dispatched in short time, the highly annoyed GM stated "your character would never do that, as a vampire he would prefer to use a sword...".... Why what? because of ... he's an idiot and would like to be killed? ... again? Why would he do such a stupid thing if he had the resources to do otherwise. Only because this would give the enemies more "screen-time"? I would not have complained, if the GM would have pulled something out of her (
Torojima Traditionally wizards aren't completely useless in combat it's just that mastering the arcane arts takes a lifetime of commitment. Traditionally D&D wizards are rubbish at starting level but godly at higher levels.
When I first became interested in D&D, a good family friend gave me a leftover copy of that very same light blue rulebook. Talk about broken and incomplete - I was certain there had to be a second half to it somewhere. And since I had no polyhedral dice, I cut out the randomizer chits from the back cover and laid them inside a shoebox for players to draw from. What a pain! Had I known how back then, I simply would have used simple formulas to kinda simulate d4 to d20 with only d6s. (d12: roll 2d6. If the second d6 = 1,2,3 then use only the first d6; if = 4,5,6 then add 6 to the first d6) When the purple and red boxes came out, I defaced the blue book with characters speaking comedy routines in word balloons to each other.
i agree with most things save for the puniness of characters. having weak grave robbers as PCs is far better than the deities that other editions create
what about a khajit theif, a drunk bard, and a psychopathic halfling following a rightous trible warrior with an army funded off of selling marijuana. and the drunk bard owns several gay bars.
Barsds didn't exist in original D&D and an AD&D Bard was a tripple class character with a minimum of 5 levels of Fighter, 5 levels of thief, then they switch to Druid and begin leveing as Bards. Real brds were badd ass, 3x and later bards are just fake and gay crap made up to please the mentally challenged fan base.
+Phoenix Dawn I guess... but I've seen many other new genres and types of games that didn't have such insanely obvious imbalances in the weapons. There's not even anything to cause them to mess up.. like having difficult to compare advantages, such as reach or special abilities. It's simply... this does more damage than this which does more than this which does more than this. Even if they implemented a weight system, for example, it would favor the weapon that is already better. It's really strange. The earliest first person shooters in existence didn't have this issue lol
Earliest FPS games have really simple systems in comparison to what DnD has to do and by that time, it was already DnD 2nd edition! I am not trying to say it had no flaws but it is understandable. Like, it is possible to make stupid mistakes while designing a game. Especially if it will have a lot of moving parts and has to consider a lot of things.
Phoenix Dawn Well, I don't know if I agree with the premise (that early FPS games have simpler systems) I suppose in terms of pure gameplay systems it's mostly just.. shoot the other people.. yeah... but there's usually quite a bit more to it. Also, when you consider what it actually takes to write software for a game, especially back then, it becomes considerably more complex... and adjusting mistakes is a lot more difficult. More important than all of that, though... with very early DnD.. it seemed like it was pretty largely focused on the dungeons and the dragons.. i.e. the combat. So I'd imagine the combat system was a pretty core component. Creating 3 melee weapon classes... and making two of them utterly useless.. and so very clearly so (they do strictly less damage and have no advantages...) just seems really silly to me. If you look at one of the earliest platformers (mario brothers), it's very apparent how extremely precisely they designed all of the mechanics and levels to create the best experience they could within their limitations. Though, I guess.. to this day, many RPG developers create situations where you have strictly worse equipment. It's quite disappointing. However, this isn't just the difference between a sword and a + sword. This is three entire weapon classes, where two are utterly useless lol /rant
Wow, the memories come flooding back. I think I spend nearly all the reading the books and rolling characters rather than actually playing. What larks. I recall one of teh magic items was a rod or wand of cold that did 5d6. Bash open door - freeze monster - collect treasure - repeat... It just killed nearly everything, even I managed to work out that something was amiss.
+Figaro Fog I played it in the early eighties and I don't remember a time when Magic Missile didn't automatically hit. I do remember the books he's showing in the video though.
+Figaro Fog No, you heard right, that's what he said, but I think he was wrong, unless there was a time when Magic Missile didn't auto hit that I'm just not remembering. But as far as I know, it was always auto hit.
+Figaro Fog In the silver anniversary book he's reviewing the entry for magic Missile reads: "A conjured missile equal to a magic arrow, and it does 1 die plus 1 point (2-7) to any creature it strikes. Roll the missile fire like a long bow arrow (missile fire table). Higher level magic-users fire more than one missile." How many missiles? However, the best part about that book is the bottom right of the cover which reads in caps "THE ORIGINAL ADULT FANTASY ROLE PLAYING GAME FOR 3 OR MORE PLAYERS" Freaky!!!
Hmmm, what about... Light weapons deal 1D6 but get 2 attacks a round Medium weapons deal 1D6 but get +3 to damage (basically 1D6+3) Heavy weapons deal 3D6 but you must have a minimum strength score of 16 to use and are two handed.
Yes and if the cheerleader from a horror movie would be acting rationally she would never have been in the shack in the woods and she certainly wouldn't inspect that weird sound and there'd be no story to tell. Sure, the combat system wasn't perfect and there could be improvements made, but the central idea and value was to have fun creating stories and to play a role.
Dunam. you cant tell a better story? you cant make the bad guy convincingly capable enough to be a threat to non moronic people? say the victim decided not to hang out in the scary place....so the killer comes to her?
In 1981 I started playing the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragon. There was a Players Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, etc. It had issues...but I was fortunate to have played under some very imaginative DMs who, in time, taught me to be a better player and eventually a good DM.
I blame DnD for the strange notion persisting in RPGs that all monsters carry their lunch money with them that you can take once you beat them up. So now even in games like WoW you can loot things like magic pants from dead grizzly bears.
don't be daft, if you actually had the book you would know that Dave and Gary wrote that the rules were just guidelines to go by no the truth set in stone by the random number god. It was your ability that made the game what it came to be.
The issue was that by 1979 there were t least 5 popular game systems and D&D was the least playable. The only thing it had going for it was that you could buy it anywhere, like through Sears mail order. If the D&D designers were looking at other games they were either to lazy to make things easier or to arrogant to change. Having met EGG, I vote for the latter.
it wasn't low-effort design. Wow, what a mistake you made saying that. It was thought out and play tested. The idea was that the rules weren't written in stone and it was more important that the game was fun, and not to let the rules ruin the game. Man I had to face palm when I read what you said Kyle. Total misunderstanding by you and kevin. “It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule books upon you, if it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters given in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons volumes, you are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a whole first, you campaign next and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as it was meant to be.” Dungeon Master’s Guide (page 230), Gary Gygax
I remember my first D&D game. It was 3.5ish. Actually, the DM hadn't DM'ed for a while so he was going by memory and accidentally mixed in a few other editions, and some item effects stacked that weren't supposed to stack and so forth. My first character was a dragonborn paladin with 70 movespeed (14 squares, result of stacking a number of different items that are actually rare anyway and don't stack) and a ton of strength. We go into the first room which I believe was taken from the partial starting campaign for 3.5 or 4.0. So, we enter a room with a bunch of goblins and there is a direwolf banging against the cage. Our solution: sneak over and release the direwolf so it goes berserk on the goblins =D. That didn't end well.
wow that's crazy, I always assumed the older editions would be like polished classics, but that sounds like a child wrote the rules. I'm in no way bragging when I say; I could make a better combat system, I'm sure most people who've ever played an RPG could.
Bratzbeerkuchen Regardless, you have to admit, the combat system especially is simply laughable, almost a bad joke. like "ok you can either use this weapon and be double as effective or use this weapon and be half as effective, you have a tough choice to make here". Unless.. are you saying you can't make a better system than that? I did research and 90% of the rules make no sense at all, like each alignment having a specific language for example. I'm freakin' half drunk right now but I could still give an immediate example made up on the spot of a better way to do that.
Bratzbeerkuchen did you not watch the video? a plastic fork would be MORE effective than a sharpened sword in that game. double as effective infact, perhaps four times as effective if the sword was a claymore. "all weapons do 1d6 damage but big weapons are slower, and small weapons are faster" the lighter the weapon, the better it is.
***** Ah I confused the video with another one. Sorry for that. Didnt notice it was "early d&d". Of course weapons nowadays have different base damage values. Still I can imagine that we nowadays are so familiar with basic rpg rules though all the games we have available that its much easier to think into those rules. Early video games also have really really dumb rules, but those werent dumb ppl, it just were different times.
It was for a while like that. In AD&D second edition, yes, the one that spawned Baldur's gate, a wizard had D4 hit points and a needle did 1 damage. So yes, one stab of a needle could kill a wizard.
back in 88 we got the basic red box set with that glorious red dragon on the cover. my little brother was pissed that he could not play because he was below the "ages 10 and up" stated on the cover. boy was he mad. :-)
"Hitting" is taking into account a person's ability to dodge and the armour's protectiveness to decide whether or not the person receives the damage. It doesn't reduce because the system is made to be more gamey and have weapons do base damage with the character adding bonuses with armour simply making it harder to do this damage rather than dulling it.
It's fun and easy to make straw men out of things you don't understand and then tear them down. This video is like an even worse version of Stephen Colbert, if that's even possible.
Angled corridors can all be explained easily enough. I used to say the catacomb followed an old mine which was following a gold seam etc. Other bends in a corridor were for defence. I recall finding an interior design for a castle and finding similar turns in passages. Just needs imagination.
Two things always get me about all versions of D&D: the HP system and dungeons. Let's say I'm a mage with 3 HP. "blah blah kobold stabs your arm 2 damage". You're saying that I take a small dagger wound to the arm and I'm nearly dead? I know it's done to quantify health to make it easier to keep track of but my goodness it's unrealistic. And the second thing: dungeons. You go down into a dungeon. It is completely sealed off by some stone door so there is no fresh air getting in. How do people breathe? The torches and creatures would eventually use up all the oxygen! Also, what kind of creature just chills in a dungeon? Why don't they go outside? Do the goblins in that dungeon not need food and water? GAH IT MAKES NO SENSE.
2/3 of your total HP is not a "small dagger wound". A good GM will have you roll up the damage and then based on the results will describe what happened. If a beefy warrior with 20 HP takes a 2 hit dagger wound, I would probably describe that as "a small wound". However, in the case of your lowly mage, the description would be more along the lines of "The goblin sneers and lunges, driving his dagger deep into your side! Blood immediately starts pouring from the nasty wound as you stagger back." As far as a single dagger wound being lethal as unrealistic, I have to strongly disagree - getting stabbed in the gut with a 6-8" blade is definitely a big deal and in a lot of cases could be lethal. I think the reverse is far more unrealistic. I don't care if you are level 100 - getting hit with a sword should always be of concern, yet with the D&D HP system, it often is not. As far as dungeons, yah - so, so many dungeons make no sense at all. Wouldn't the orcs in room 2 eat the goblins in room 5??!? Or the hideout that has a trap every 5'...um, how do the bandits get in and out regularly? It would take them 45 minutes to go take a wizz. But you can definitely find (or design your own) dungeons that are plausible, sensible and fun to play.
Yes, at 1st level there were no 'flesh wounds' and at high levels there were ONLY flesh wounds. He talks about the mage being useless, the introduction of the monk was even worse. Rock bottom stats at everything other than speed and HP(only at 1st level, then they sucked)
Well it is a fantasy role playing game that exists in your imagination. There has to be a set of rules to keep track of how you are doing in a battle. It can't be 100% realistic because real people don't have a certain number associated with how many times they can be hit before they die. But in a game, you need those numbers. Also, I've never seen anybody with only 3 max hp. And even if they did only start with 3 (what a horrible constitution score) they would have 6 at lvl 2 in a short time anyway. And just to be clear, you can easily take a life threatening wound to the arm from a dagger. A dagger can be 18 inches long, weigh 2 pounds, and a well placed shot with enough power can sever your arm, or run straight through it. You can bleed to death in moments or even be incapacitated by shock. As far as dungeons, the dungeons are only as realistic or unrealistic as the DM makes them. In my campaigns the dungeons always make sense. If it has been sealed for 700 years, there are no living creatures inside. If there are creatures, they are making a home of the dungeon just as a bear makes a home in a small cave. It will have an air supply (if the creatures require it) and maybe even water and easy access to the outside at various locations. And i don't just throw random creatures together in a dungeon that wouldn't normally live together. You won't find a pack of kobolds living alongside a pack of wolves and a tribe of orcs in the next room with a beholder in the corner. The game is only as good as the DMs ability to create a world and your ability to imagine your character in it.
I had the privilege of getting introduced to D&D with 5e. Long story short it's phenomenal, after a rather innocent start as a naive, happy Halfling Ranger / Beastmaster eventually i even found myself playing as the controversial Aarakocra, better yet, i chose the homebrew Shaman Witch Doctor and thjanks to my excellent DM it still worked wonderfully, there was nothing gamebreaking that would take me out of the experience. Also by the way i recommend Aarakocras to everyone, not because you can fly, but rather because they are adult by the age of 3. So i played a 5 year old Aarakocra who had never seen the world outside of his forest tribe and it was just a bliss to roleplay. One time for instance i got to sleep at a noblemans house in a comfortable bed, the next morning i asked what they stuffed inside the pillows because they were so amazingly soft. Needless to say there was an awkward moment of silence before one of them told me in the friendliest way possible that it's a little secret of "the noblemen". An other time a friend said "fuck me!" in a horrible situation and my Aarakocra understood the words but was oblivious to the figure of speech, so in a sort of perplexed way i reminded him that maybe this isn't the best time for intercourse. Give it a go, you won't be disappointed :)
While it's true the original D&D had some bad rules, none of that mattered, for when you played you simply used your own rules, which is what D&D strictly emphasized anyway. Today, D&D SUCKS. It's boring rules lawyer crap. Real D&D is roleplaying, going adventuring, having fun, imagining yourself as a dwarf or an elf, a warrior or wizard or rogue, traveling over terrain, exploring dungeons, fighting monsters, finding treasure & overcoming obstacles. It's about learning how to play as a group & solve problems. Today's D&D is about realistic rules. Rubbish. If you want a good D&D book today, check out Castles & Crusades. The intro alone got me hooked.
All versions of D&D have rubbish rules. The game only works if you don't follow the rules. All the people who think otherwise haven't played the game by the rules. I'm very much convinced especially Gary Gygax didn't play the printed game.
Really? A dagger lets you attack twice in a turn, while a longsword you have 1 attack pern turn, but its on a 1 turn cooldown. Making a dagger litteraly four times more effective
So... the point to the video is that you are now an adult? You can now handle greater complexity, you prefer more realistic simulations, you can figure out long-term flaws in a system, and you aren't as easily impressed by simple situations and tricks. News flash... pretend you are ten years old again. When I'm DMing a child... I'll immediately revert rules back at to as close to Basic as possible. I don't want to explain reach, attacks of opportunity, etc. to an eight year-old. I don't want the complexity of race vs. class, picking a half dozen spells plus domains or specializations, weapon proficiencies, skills, etc. I'll switch to pre-gens, purchasing skills in blocks of 4, etc. I will make the encounters as simple as "The monster pops up." and "You find a big sack of coins." rather than complex rules for starting combat. Honestly, given someone young enough it doesn't matter if I was DMing Basic, 3.5, or 4E. Rules and encounters are going to be simplified. I'd actually prefer Basic rules and then just DM added complexity in terms of roleplaying, encounter setup, story, plot, etc. rather than have to 'dumb-down' the rules from 3.x for someone young. My only reason for not doing that is presumably the kid would eventually be in a 3.x or 4E group and it is better to get them started on the same rules.
at very begining of the AD&D DM guide I remember there being a line about how all the rules contained in the book are suggestions and none are required. You could always alter it to fit how your game plays, but if you need a rule they got something for you.
The only naivete is that you didn't bother to change guidelines (they are not rules) to suit your own game. Let me guess: you didn't know realise you were able to do that? lol.
Houseruling something doesn't make a game less shitty. If you bought a new RPG today and the rules were poor and you had to fix them all yourself, would you be okay with that? I wouldn't. I don't mind having to make a few, but the fewer i HAVE to make in order for the game to work the better.
MrGhaundan The rules seemed naive for lindy and he considers early D&D to be rubbish -- but for another person they may not be naive, but fun to play (these "naive" rules by the way, have won more awards than any subsequent iteration of D&D). Some of the things lindy finds naive have to do with the problem of realism, that the rules were naive because they didn't properly simulate realism; but that was never the goal of Dungeons & Dragons. It is a role-playing fantasy game (meant for fun), not for a simulation of reality. If the guidelines are not fun for you, then you change them like everyone else does. I respect lindy's opinion. I don't think early D&D was rubbish.
***** Well, I won't try to defend Lindy's points as that's his job and not mine. But the rules are poorly balanced and leave much to be desired. And yes, early D&D did win alot of awards and there's two reasons: One, a lack of competition. Two, it basically gave birth to pen and paper roleplaying games as we know them today and that is an astonishing accomplishment. I still feel the rules are horribly lacking, not well thought out and probably not playtested much.
MrGhaundan Early D&D, the Holmes basic set (in the video) was NOT a complete system and was not its own game; it was an introduction for Advanced D&D, three levels, simple, subject to interpretation and modification. Most of the criticisms in this video are just personal preferences, "the pcs are just so puny;"; well that doesn't mean the game is imbalanced or rubbish: it just means you didn't like it. Similarly, "pcs are way too powerful and hardly ever can die" I could say that about modern D&D. Holmes in the book says advanced D&D allows for varying amounts of damage by different weapons; (thus, a larger weapon, usable once every two rounds, now might do 1d8 or 1d10 damage). -- this is printed in the book lindy holds (but lindy neglected to mention this). Thus, if you wanted higher damage for bigger weapons usable every two rounds, you could do it! It says it right there in the book. Guidelines don't force you to do d6 for everything! They mention varying damage. The book was not naive, but it is naive to think you can't change anything and need to play in a way that's not fun for you. Can you show me which rules in Holmes basic D&D were imbalanced, which made the game as a whole, imbalanced?
Kevin J. Dildonik I don't blame you if you don't understand D&D. I encourage you to visit the Dragonsfoot forums (if you're not there already), where there is a lively forum willing to respond to your ideas. The people there can clear some things up for you about 1st and 2nd ed D&D, because your post shows me you understand almost nothing.
I've enjoyed D&D since the Pepto-Bismol-pink "Basic" and powder-blue "Expert" boxed sets (mid-80s; a bit after the incarnation you discuss here). Now I play DDO (Dungeons & Dragons Online) and I love to tell the guys I run with about your comments in this video.
I started with AD&D and when out DM pulled out the red box we were all excited to try a session with what started it all...hated every moment of it, but at least I could say I played the red box as bragging rights I guess..
The corners are for breaking line of sight. Monsters usually don't chase if they loose line of sight but you can use them offensively or defensively as well.
I figured that out in the first hour of reading the manuals. so I changed everything to make it make sense as a game. there was no role playing, the object was to figure out the maze and get out while fighting to stay alive.
Also, the differences between longsword, bastard sword, great sword, a sword of war, zweihander, etc would be a nice topic for a future video. I've often been confused which of those terms are synonymous and which are not, and also what would be the practical differences of these types of two handed swords.
In Early DnD, people tended to get a horde of 1st levels and the survivors of that were the ones you cared about - i think they even said to do that in the rules. I saw one of the new versions - and sure enough , you play 4 zero level characters, and if one survives, it gets to be 1st level. I can see advantages and disadvantages to it. The 1d6 for any weapon idea was tossed out quick in the other versions of DnD, i notice.
d6 for every weapon was supposed to be used with Chainmail's man-to-man weapon vs armor table. With those modifiers in play, using a two-handed sword instead of a dagger actually makes sense.
My introduction to D&D was the modified First Edition rules released in a bunch of colourful box sets in the 80s. This included an introductory adventure which was described as being playable by two people (one DM and one PC.) So my brother and I rolled up my character (taking about 30 minutes) and started playing the intro adventure (with a single PC party). The first monster you encounter is on the PATH to the actual dungeon and is a Carrion Crawler. Which gets eight (?) chances to paralyse and a couple of bite attacks. Needless to say my 4-HP fighter died pretty quickly. One thing you don't mention is that the PCs in D&D started with a rolled number of hit dice (mage with 1d4, fighter was 1d8 I think.) So if you didn't have a decent CON, you could easily wind up with a fighter with a MAXIMUM of one hit point. I think AD&D did this as well. The Immortals set (the highest set of those boxed coloured original D&D sets) had some interesting ideas, though. Basically covered your ascent to godhood when you hit the high levels. By my reading the actual game would have been even less playable than base D&D, but the actual ideas were interesting.
Hey i Found your channel today and im haven stopped watching your vids, I have always wondered what D&D was about ill admit i have on intention of playing it nor looking for people in my age group to play it with, but from what i heard its been inspiration for alot of the med-fantasy books,video games and more.
When we played in college (late 1970s), just about every DM added rules to improve game play. I played in some very interesting worlds ... one took place inside a human body, another turned into Midkemia (yes, Ray Feist was a good friend). We viewed the rule books as the framework to invent better RPGs.
