Quote from: Armchair Gamer;851160Justin's argument, as I understand it, is that while most RPGs give you implicit or explicit permission to alter or ignore rules, AD&D 1st Edition strongly exhorts, if not outright commands, that the rules be used as a complete, coherent and unmodified whole.

  I'm not familiar enough with the textual details of AD&D to know whether this is accurate. However, what rules beyond the bard and psionic appendices are called out as optional?

1: Justins argument is false. Hence why people are calling him out on it. As I quoted from the DMG. The statement was essentially "Change what you want. The rules are a guide. Not set in stone. Do not let the players try to rules layer you if it contradicts what you have set down. Think things through, be fair and consistent with your changes and you are playing AD&D as it was meant to be played."

2:
PHB: Falling damage is optional. Yes. The most bitched about element of D&D is optional. Poison (though more like heavily restricted.)
DMG: Rolling 3d6 in order. Secondary skills. Chance of contracting a disease. Racial Tendencies. Playing monsters. Gem magical properties. Weapon type adjustments. Non-human sages. Non-assassin spies. Choosing starting spells. And that is before page 40.

Quote from: CRKrueger;851199It's like saying Oxygen is a metal.  It is so ridiculously, obviously false that actually lowering yourself to proving it wrong is beneath pond scum.  You have better things to do, like die in 30 years.

Ive got my DMG handy. but Im not combing through the thing for every single example. Suffice to say. Yeah, hes wrong.

Quote from: Brad;851096I don't think I've ever actually played AD&D in a group that was BtB, RAW. Your statement was this (at least I think this is what you're referring to):

QuoteBasically nobody actually plays AD&D.

Many people believe they are. Virtually all of them are deceiving themselves.

That's an absurd statement to make. Of COURSE we're playing AD&D. We're definitely NOT using every single sub-system the game offers because half of them are optional and the other half are specific to certain cases.

What on earth made you think that cutting the second half of my post from your quote, rephrasing it, and then claiming that your rephrasing of what I said proves that what I said was wrong was a good idea?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;851160Justin's argument, as I understand it, is that while most RPGs give you implicit or explicit permission to alter or ignore rules, AD&D 1st Edition strongly exhorts, if not outright commands, that the rules be used as a complete, coherent and unmodified whole.

Actually, no. What I was responding to was the claim that AD&D was a faster and lighter system than 3.x because you can ignore a bunch of rules in AD&D.

It's not that nobody should be allowed to ignore rules they don't like in AD&D. It's that comparing your massively house-ruled version of AD&D to RAW 3.x (or any other edition) and claiming that it is, in any way, a meaningful comparison of the two games is prima facie absurd.

Quote from: TristramEvans;851064

QuoteYou didn't even manage to get through a single step before revealing that you weren't using the AD&D 1E rules.

(Surprise in AD&D 1E is not only a matter of being surprised by the appearance of a monster.)

Which didnt apply to the combat in question.

You're trying very hard, but you're strawman remains a strawman.

First, you literally misquoted me. Shame on you.

Second, the situation you described explicitly fits the criteria under which the AD&D rules require a surprise check. Like I said.

The deliberate misquoting of what I said makes me rather suspect you know this to be true.

Next time, you should probably just admit that you were wrong.

Justin just went full Frank Trollman.

Dude. You never go full Frank Trollman.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;851229It's not that nobody should be allowed to ignore rules they don't like in AD&D. It's that comparing your massively house-ruled version of AD&D to RAW 3.x (or any other edition) and claiming that it is, in any way, a meaningful comparison of the two games is prima facie absurd.

I dunno, man. If "virtually everyone" is playing the "houseruled" version, why use RAW as the standard of comparison? Shouldn't we be comparing games as they are actually played, rather than the Platonic ideal of the letter of their rulesets?

Quote from: The Butcher;851231Shouldn't we be comparing games as they are actually played, rather than the Platonic ideal of the letter of their rulesets?

Since nobody plays the Platonic ideal of AD&D1e, yes. And for any drongos who want to claim to play AD&D1e by the book: please explain to us the initiative rules.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;851229Actually, no. What I was responding to was the claim that AD&D was a faster and lighter system than 3.x because you can ignore a bunch of rules in AD&D.

It's not that nobody should be allowed to ignore rules they don't like in AD&D. It's that comparing your massively house-ruled version of AD&D to RAW 3.x (or any other edition) and claiming that it is, in any way, a meaningful comparison of the two games is prima facie absurd.

I stand corrected; my apologies for misconstruing your argument.  However, I think it is arguable that even 3.X as played wound up heavier than AD&D as played. I suspect this is because defined character abilities hooked on to parts of the 3.X rules that otherwise would have been handwaved as they were in AD&D. Of course, this is a hypothesis based on second-hand data.

Speaking strictly from my own experience - when I ran AD&D 1E back in 2014, I found that it was refreshingly easy to houserule, but that it was indeed a gigantic, incoherent mess. That's part of it's charm and it's drawbacks - it's very customizable, and maddeningly incoherent if you do indeed try to run it from the RAW (which we did for combat, using the ADDICT document.) It was way fun. There's no need to apologize for it, it was what it was for it's time and it got  alot of people excited for the hobby.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;851229rephrasing it

That's a direct fucking quote. Now you're just being a dick.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;851239Since nobody plays the Platonic ideal of AD&D1e, yes. And for any drongos who want to claim to play AD&D1e by the book: please explain to us the initiative rules.

Each side rolls, adds any applicable modifiers.

Or do you mean the initiative play out in a round?

Even that is fairly straightforward. Its the special case rules that get quirky.

Actually, you don't add modifiers. The reaction/attacking adjustment for dexterity only applies to actual surprise segments. The D6 roll is never modified. We went over this in my home group, look it up.

That is what meant. If a side is surprised then it automatically fails initiative for example.

Also ranged fire DEX bonus effects initiative roll for themselves only. But it still is a factor in initiative. Page 64.

Quote from: Omega;851276That is what meant. If a side is surprised then it automatically fails initiative for example.

Also ranged fire DEX bonus effects initiative roll for themselves only. But it still is a factor in initiative. Page 64.

Hm. Must check that out. Weird, thanks.

We were finding nuggets like this all the time.

Also - Astonishing Swordsmen of Hyperborea has to be my favorite AD&D 1 inspired clone. It retains the spirit of AD&D 1, if that makes sense. I really want to play it one day.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;851058You didn't even manage to get through a single step before revealing that you weren't using the AD&D 1E rules. ...

The best part were all the other people who conveniently hoist themselves by their own petard by nodding their heads in agreement with you, thus proving that they, too, weren't playing AD&D by the RAW. Just like I said.

Sorry, slyboots, what you actually said was: "Basically nobody actually plays AD&D."

This may be a news flash to you, but actually playing AD&D is not generally identical with Justin Alexander's definition of "by the RAW".

Mr. Gygax devoted ample space to making clear that the most important rules are meta-rules, the DM's power of adjudication being the source of all other rules (which are themselves merely contingent upon that).

The DM is the master of the game. By inherent nature, the game is a fundamentally different phenomenon from Chess or Contract Bridge.

Not that ADDICT is "the RAW" anyhow. From what I gather, the writer made up an interpretation of monk surprise that's a lot more complicated than the one I've used (which perfectly matches the actual specification).

Quote from: soltakss;851071Yep,between 5 and 10 sets of shaking 1D100, followed by between 5 and 10 sets of shaking for the damage ...

Definitely not a good one for folks who can't just get on with the toss. Some people seem to like the stately pace I've seen for instance in 4E D&D, but I find fast action more conducive to my enjoyment.

With RuneQuest, I like the details it adds to my visualization of events enough to make the chrome worthwhile. We could probably get a similar spread of outcomes with fewer steps, but the "feel of the process" adds to my enjoyment.

Except when I'm in the mood for something else, that is! Variety is the spice of the gaming life.

The "2E ethos" was to spell things out very clearly. So, some things are explicitly optional. The flip side, of course, is that other things can thus be considered mandatory (and may be explicitly so as "tournament rules").

2E encouraged tremendous variation -- through purchasing TSR's ever-growing canon of Official AD&D expansion books.

2E made it easier for some people to think, "Ah, I could do things this way or that way; different tools are suited to different contexts." The texts raised many considerations and possibilities in a way that was easier for many people to grasp. From vocabulary to layout, the books were geared to a larger demographic.

Gygax's work had nuances, a quality lost -- perhaps increasingly so -- on a large segment of the public.