|
Brian Modreski
United States
Thornton
Colorado
-
With RPG Geek here at last, Lisa and I were checking the info, editing our collections, and she was adding in the old 'Immortal' set for D&D.
[Side Rant]The gold set? What the hell is this color coding anyway? Basic - Expert - Companion - Master - Immortal! That makes sense! How am I supposed to know what the Fuscia set was?[/Rant]
Well, after entering some of this, we both looked at each, both got kind of a silly, embarrassed look, and both asked "Want to play some old Basic D&D just for the heck of it?"
So, we dug out our old, tattered basic sets. For those of you who just know 3.5 and 4e, some of this stuff may be a bit shocking.
We rolled up characters. Creating characters in old D&D takes roughly the same amount of time as filling in the details of one power in 4e. Roll six stats. 3D6, in order. No drop lowest. No point buys. From those stats, its readily apparently which class you are.
With a fantastic set of luck, we actually had some 16s in our stats. Whee! And some 8s and 6s and other low scores of course. You are allowed to move points around, at a 2 for 1 rate. Except there are two stats you can't adjust, one that can only go down, and one that can only go up. So...you can't really move stats around.
She had a Magic-User and a Fighter. I made a Cleric and a Dwarf. Yes, Dwarf was a class. A dwarf is like a fighter, but it takes you more XP to advance in levels, however you can detect traps.
Stats done. Write down the saving throws. Write down the to-hit table; or in our case decide to convert to THAC0.
Everyone knows what THAC0 is, right? In old D&D, you had a table with a chance to hit. The more armor you wear, the lower your AC is, which makes you harder to hit. This is completely opposite of everything else in the game, where high is better.
The secret behind how this works is that you have a number you need to hit, the To-Hit AC 0. This is what you need to score on a twenty sided die to hit a target with an AC of 0. So, to hit a different AC, you just add their AC to your roll. If I need a 19 to hit AC 0, and my target has AC 6, I need a 13 to hit them. 13+6 = 19. See? Simple. Totally counter-intuitive and never clearly explained, but hey, these were learning days right?
THAC0 doesn't quite work in Basic, but it was accurate enough for now.
We also picked out our gear. This is real easy, since you always want the heaviest armor you can wear and afford (plate for everyone but the MU). None of that check penalty or move penalty stuff, or AC bonuses only for light armor. Heavy armor = good!
There's a list of several weapons, but only one or two are worth using. So equipping goes fast.
Oh, and picking your spell. That's right, a 1st level wizard gets 1 spell. Which you can cast once per day. I've heard people complain about 3.x wizards being relegated to shooting with a crossbow for the rest of the day after 3 spells - well HA! In Basic, you don't even get the crossbow!
And the cleric? Hah! You thought we'd have healing since we had a cleric. Nope. No spellcasting for clerics until level 2. An unlikely prospect, since my poor cleric had a whopping 1 hit point (I actually rolled a 2, but had a -1 CON modifier).
Into the dungeon!
Plot? What plot? This was truly old school style. Into a dungeon to fight monsters.
And, a pair of Giant Geckos dropped from the ceiling to attack us!
No, I'm not joking.
Yes, I really did say Giant Geckos.
Ok, yes, I know, a gecko is hardly what I'd call a fearsome creature. It mostly just sits there and catches sun. But hey, its right there in the monster section. Giant Gecko. Maybe now the raptor-looking drakes in later editions don't seem so silly by comparison.
So, we did battle with the fearsome (I can say that with a straight face, really...its more intimidating the infamous Giant Slug at least) Giant Geckos. Which, honestly, are pretty fearsome. They have 3 hit dice, which means one of them has roughly as many hit points as the whole party. They hit better than we do. In one hit, they'd nearly taken out my poor dwarf.
Magic-User to the rescue! You know how people complain about save-or-die spells in 3.x? Well in old D&D, you don't even have the 'save' part. A Sleep spell puts to sleep a bunch of monsters. Automatically. Pffftt, gone. Two geckos down.
With the dwarf almost dead, and the MU out of spells, the sensible thing to do would be to turn around and go home. In fact, the tactic of "put monsters to sleep. Run away until you recover" is solid tactics in Basic D&D. But that would be boring.
So we pressed on. Deeper into the dungeon, only to find a band of orcs. They charged, ignoring our missile fire. We engaged in melee.
Crunch. A lucky hit, and the 1 HP cleric dropped, dead. Things were looking bad. Our combined attacks managed to kill one orc.
Time for a morale check! Yes, old D&D had a morale check. Rolled on 2d6 - consistency was NOT a virtue in those days! The orcs failed their check, and fled howling into the dungeon. Even though they clearly would have slaughtered us. Victory was ours!
With one party member down, it was time to retreat back to town, rest a lot (there are probably rules for how many HP you actually recover each day; we completely forgot about this and figured one day's rest would fill us up), and recruit - an elf!
While a cleric might have been nice in the long run, random rolls remember?
Ah, good old Basic elves! All the benefits of a Magic-User and a Fighter rolled into one! The downside? You need twice as much experience as anyone else to level up! But now our party featured two sleep spells! Its not like there's anything else worth getting as a first level spell!
So, we decided to track down the orcs, sneak up on their camp, and avenge the cleric.
Wait...track? Sneak? What, you think D&D gives you rules for that sort of thing?! Pah! If you're a rogue thief you can move silently. We had no thieves. Tracking? That's right out. Heck, Basic didn't even have the concept of ability checks!
So, we decided that sneaking up would give us a free round of shooting. Since we won initiative, this amounted to rounds of deadly arrows, bolts and slingstones raining down on the hapless orcs before they got into melee range.
Every single shot missed.
Furious melee ensued. If you call rolling a bunch of twenty sided dice furious. This time, we chopped apart the orcs. (Our casters reserved their sleep spells for later emergencies).
Then, rolling on treasure tables! Ah, good old fashioned treasure tables. We failed to roll any magic items, but at least found a few thousand gold pieces.
And, that was about enough Basic D&D for us. We did total up our experience - a hundred odd from fighting monsters, a few thousand from treasure.
Yep, back then you got almost no experience from fighting monsters, but 1 XP per GP value of treasure! Handy, since there really wasn't anything to buy.
After three fights, we'd decided basic D&D really doesn't work this way; you just can't go random dungeon crawling in a game where combat is to be avoided at all costs due to the high lethality, and is pretty boring to boot. Basic D&D encourages a mindset of utter cowardice and risk avoidance. While combat doesn't work well in it, its also the only thing you've got rules for.
A game of basic D&D is going to be fun the more you start leaving the rules behind; as you get into the realms of puzzles, and strange surroundings to explore. In many ways, I think its just the novelness of the game that appealed to those of us who grew up on it. We loved the concept, even if the execution was lacking.
Looking back at Basic D&D is like looking at a Wright Brother's airplane; clever proof of concept, but its hard to believe it actually flew.
Though, to be honest, the concept of an RPG is far less clever; the core of what made D&D good is the old cops&robbers/cowboys&indians/house that kids have played for who knows how long!
-
Matthew Vantries
United States
Woodbury
Minnesota
-
I feel like a grandpa is sitting me down on his lap while he tells me about the good old days back before such and such existed...........except this time, I'm actually interested in what he has to say.
-
Brian Modreski
United States
Thornton
Colorado
-
Great. Now I'm the cantankerous old curmudgeon of RPGGeek.
"Now listen up you young whipersnapers!"
-
BFL's going down (under)
Australia
ACT
-
I smiled all the way through reading this. Basic was my first experience of D&D, and boy was it wonky!
Combat did work, if you ever got past the first few levels, but owing to the way XP was gained from treasure, there was very little incentive to get into a fight you could avoid. This in many ways was a good thing, as you had to use your brain (oo-er) to get past obstacles, rather than biffing your way through.
Of course, the random monster tables could drop something horrendous on you at any time, and wham. Dead party. And let's not forget poison in its Basic form 'if you are hit by a monster with poison, make a save vs. poison or die'. Lethal? You betcha.
Did anyone ever play all the way from levels 1-36 and live to tell the tale?
-
László K.
United States
Hopatcong
New Jersey
-
bigfluffylemon wrote: Did anyone ever play all the way from levels 1-36 and live to tell the tale?
Well, considering that my very first character (a 1st-level magic-user, go figure) didn't survive the first few rooms of [rpgitem=44104], I think it's highly unlikely without bending the rules. But hey, that's just my opinion.
-
Dave Nellis
United States
Denver
Colorado
-
Ladislaus wrote: bigfluffylemon wrote: Did anyone ever play all the way from levels 1-36 and live to tell the tale?
According to the immmortal rules, do this *twice* and you win!
-
Dave Nellis
United States
Denver
Colorado
-
StormKnight wrote: A game of basic D&D is going to be fun the more you start leaving the rules behind; as you get into the realms of puzzles, and strange surroundings to explore. In many ways, I think its just the novelness of the game that appealed to those of us who grew up on it. We loved the concept, even if the execution was lacking.
Older D&D relied much more on the DMs discretion. Especially basic. Basic was *NEVER* the DM versus the party like more modern D&D can be. In fact many contemporary systems, like Warhammer RPG if I'm not mistaken, are very 'Basic' in nature. Combat is deadly, use your brain!
-
Brian Franzman
United States
Tacoma
Washington
-
Great post! It certainly brings back memories... I got hooked on RPGs with D&D Basic and Expert (red and blue, respectively) that a friend had, and I later found for myself at a yard sale. I was in the fifth grade at the time, and let me tell you, rules and logic didn't weigh heavily on our minds! As DM, the best part was drawing up your own dungeons (on graph paper, if you had any), and being as creative as possible. A river of flowing lava to be traversed with a magical stone boat? Why not! Enchanted talking pools of water, and dragons placed in rooms that they couldn't possibly ever leave? Sure!
Rules pretty much went out the window when I ran a game back then. I mean, why not let the fighter carve a tunnel through solid rock with his newly-found magic sword? It's magic, and that makes it powerful and unbreakable, right? 
As for the books, I really can't recall what the differences were between Basic and Expert, except perhaps tougher monsters for the higher levels. Once I grew a bit older and moved on to AD&D (1st edition, of course), I saw how silly it was to have Gnome as a class once I absorbed the novel idea of separating race from class. And oh, all those glorious AD&D books, filled with such nifty monsters, and stats for gods! Why would I ever go back?
I do miss those Basic D&D days, when it didn't matter what the rules were, and just having fun was the order of the day.
-
James Lowry
United States
Sunnyvale
California
-
They aren't so much rules, as guidelines....
Brian - diff between Basic and Expert: Basic only covered levels 1-3; Expert extended the system for 4-10.
-
Freelance Police
United States
Palo Alto
California
-
StormKnight wrote: "Now listen up you young whipersnapers!"
"How many experience points do I get?"
Rindis wrote: They aren't so much rules, as guidelines arguments....
Fixed!
-
Steve Bernhardt
United States
saratoga springs
Utah
-
Great session, old school gaming at its best. No munchkin, wussified gamers allowed.
-
|
|
|
Posted Mon Aug 3, 2009 4:03 pm
