Quote from: Ravenswing;806099Of course they think OD&D is an unplayable heap of shit.  What other conclusion are they equipped to draw, if they have no idea they're supposed to apply common sense to what they don't understand, and imagination to what's just not there?  It's not that they're assholes or idiots.  It's just that they don't know any better.

My 3yo knows better. I went in to get him up the other day, his duvet was off his bed, bundled up on the floor, his stuffed toys gone somewhere, I heard a voice from between the quilt and the cover, "Papa, I in rocket!"

This morning, he was sitting up, the duvet around his hips, stuffed toys to each side of him, pillow on his lap. "Brmm, brmmm, papa I driving car!"

If only he had 576 pages of rules and options, he'd be having much more fun.

Now, this is not to say we need no rules at all. In the first place, many of us are not as imaginative as a child, we need a skeleton of rules and background on which we flesh out our characters and game world; but a skeleton only weighs about 1/7th the whole, the flesh and organs are 6/7ths. The greater weight of the thing must always be imagination.  

Secondly, later my son will play cops & robbers and so on. "Bang! I got you!" "No you didn't I'm only wounded!" Children will just argue and compromise or end up wrestling for it, as adults use the rules and dice instead.

Quote from: trechriron;805836A lot of us don't like the old D&D games. I appreciate some "older" games (BRP :-), but I won't touch 0e - 4e. I simply dislike them. Now, are they unplayable? That's a matter of opinion, which these people are sharing. Not facts. Just opinions. Everyone on the internet speaks their opinion like it's a truth.

Personally, I dislike D&D in general, the older editions especially. I DMed those games for many MANY years, so it's not from lack of experience. I just prefer different mechanics.

Now, that being said, I've seen some nifty OSR stuff that frankly I wish was around when I was trying to make D&D work for me. Nifty ideas. I came up in a crowd that were willing to combine things, but not revise or modify them. So, looking at the OSR today, it's pretty impressive to see the creativity of fans basically modifying the game I secretly wanted to modify myself. :-)

It's not unreasonable for someone who has played 3.x (a somewhat cohesive approach) to find 0e "unplayable". It's a matter of perspective. It depends on what games were your first.

I started with the red box set. It was a wonderful introduction to the game. Had I started with AD&D 1e or those little booklets, I may not have been as impressed. I programmed basic on the comodore 64. Played video games on my Atari 2600. If TSR wanted to grab my attention, they needed to bring their A game. Those Toys R Us commercials and the red box were perfectly targeted to my 4th grade uber nerd self.

You had your experiences. I had mine. What you see as a "deficiency" is really just opinion and perspective.

My two cents...

I also started with the Basic Rules (the red box) and I too can't stand how unbalanced and inconsistent the game is when looking at it now. What mechanics do you prefer? I have not played for a while, but Pendragon seems good to me. What do you think?

Quote from: trechriron;805836A lot of us don't like the old D&D games. I appreciate some "older" games (BRP :-), but I won't touch 0e - 4e. I simply dislike them. Now, are they unplayable? That's a matter of opinion, which these people are sharing. Not facts. Just opinions. Everyone on the internet speaks their opinion like it's a truth.

I kinda disagree. Not with your general statements regarding people treating opinions like facts, but with the specific instance of someone stating OD&D is "unplayable". That's simply not true, from any perspective. Many, many people have played it. For years. So it is playable, by any definition. That is, actually, a fact.

Quote from: TristramEvans;806567I kinda disagree. Not with your general statements regarding people treating opinions like facts, but with the specific instance of someone stating OD&D is "unplayable". That's simply not true, from any perspective. Many, many people have played it. For years. So it is playable, by any definition. That is, actually, a fact.

Presumably their definition of playable is either (a) a game they personally can play or (b) a game that everyone, everywhere can play.

Neither definition is at all useful, but lack of utility never seems to stop people from using their own ideosyncratic definitions when talking about RPGs.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;806131Now, this is not to say we need no rules at all. In the first place, many of us are not as imaginative as a child, we need a skeleton of rules and background on which we flesh out our characters and game world; but a skeleton only weighs about 1/7th the whole, the flesh and organs are 6/7ths. The greater weight of the thing must always be imagination.  

Secondly, later my son will play cops & robbers and so on. "Bang! I got you!" "No you didn't I'm only wounded!" Children will just argue and compromise or end up wrestling for it, as adults use the rules and dice instead.

I think it is objectively provable that we don't need rules. I have played plenty of games, both as a child and as an adult, where we didn't have any mechanics or dice or formal rules - and still faced a lot of challenges and had a lot of fun. Cops and robbers is playable and complete, as demonstrated by thousands of kids actually playing it.

Someone could say that kids playing cops and robbers aren't playing a game because they aren't following formal rules - but then the same thing could be said of people playing OD&D who don't follow the rules-as-written.


So:  OD&D works as a game for some people; but then cops and robbers works as a game for some people. Some people *prefer* formal rules roughly as definite and complete/incomplete as OD&D - but that preference is no more objective than other people's preference for more complete formal rules like GURPS or D&D3.

Quote from: Bren;806583Presumably their definition of playable is either (a) a game they personally can play or (b) a game that everyone, everywhere can play.

Neither definition is at all useful, but lack of utility never seems to stop people from using their own ideosyncratic definitions when talking about RPGs.

I always felt that you can substitute the word "unplayable" with "I don't like it" and the message always seems clear.

As I noted before, if OD&D is so unplayable how could I have been playing it for 40 years? And enjoying the experience?

Quote from: jhkim;806600I think it is objectively provable that we don't need rules. I have played plenty of games, both as a child and as an adult, where we didn't have any mechanics or dice or formal rules - and still faced a lot of challenges and had a lot of fun. Cops and robbers is playable and complete, as demonstrated by thousands of kids actually playing it.

Someone could say that kids playing cops and robbers aren't playing a game because they aren't following formal rules - but then the same thing could be said of people playing OD&D who don't follow the rules-as-written.

So:  OD&D works as a game for some people; but then cops and robbers works as a game for some people. Some people *prefer* formal rules roughly as definite and complete/incomplete as OD&D - but that preference is no more objective than other people's preference for more complete formal rules like GURPS or D&D3.

I agree. I also enjoy Amber Diceless, which has two thick rulebooks but one could argue has almost zero rules. There aren't any combat charts, skill rolls, or other things traditionally filling up pages of most RPGs. What you have are examples. This led some folks to take ADRP and redo it as FATE or other rules with more structure. Not a bad thing, but a different style of play. It all comes down to preference.

Quote from: finarvyn;806678I always felt that you can substitute the word "unplayable" with "I don't like it" and the message always seems clear.

That would be definition (a). I suspect that is the sense that the poster was using the word playable.

Quote from: jhkim;806600I think it is objectively provable that we don't need rules. I have played plenty of games, both as a child and as an adult, where we didn't have any mechanics or dice or formal rules - and still faced a lot of challenges and had a lot of fun. Cops and robbers is playable and complete, as demonstrated by thousands of kids actually playing it.

You seem to be presuming that all play is playing a game. I don't think that is correct, i.e. I'd argue that some play isn't a game.

But I think that is unrelated to the question of whether OD&D is playable as a game. Based on the experience of tens of thousands of people (if not more), it is.

Hating on OD&D is like hating on your ancestor that gave birth to your great-grandmother and bombing on her for wearing skins and hides instead of Yoga-pants and a thong.

She is the mother of our hobby. Treat her with respect, even if you don't understand her.

Quote from: Arohtar;806565I also started with the Basic Rules (the red box) and I too can't stand how unbalanced and inconsistent the game is when looking at it now. What mechanics do you prefer? I have not played for a while, but Pendragon seems good to me. What do you think?

I have not played Pendragon, I have read some of it, and there's some great stuff in the game. I do like BRP and variations, but it works better with smaller numbers. I find using it to run battles with many people per side to be cumbersome. I should probably research a "mass battle" system for BRP. :-)

I am really enjoying HARP (revised) at the moment. There's also a Sci-Fi version. You can search The Googles for more info, I've made several posts regarding it recently.

Quote from: TristramEvans;806567I kinda disagree. Not with your general statements regarding people treating opinions like facts, but with the specific instance of someone stating OD&D is "unplayable". That's simply not true, from any perspective. Many, many people have played it. For years. So it is playable, by any definition. That is, actually, a fact.

I agree the language used is hyperbolic. I am sure what they mean is "I don't like games like this". They are just using insulting language to draw people into the a heated discussion. You can respond with the same level of insult or just share your experiences playing the games you love. Also, pointing out the OSR and games spawned from that enthusiasm would be another great point to support the "playability (= people liking the game)".

Also, people seem to be afraid to make rulings. There was a LOT of backlash coming up in the hobby about "GM fiat" and "rulings not rules". It seems to be coming back around, but for a LONG time that stuff was DIRTY WORDS (and naughty). D&D 3.x was really an attempt to codify the rulings and help get the "arbitrary GM making things bad-wrong-fun" out of the way. It doesn't work. I think we have some great resources out there to teach GM's (look at Kobold Press's awesome offerings for example...) and as more people step up to GM and focus on making a fun, exiting game, the bulk of the player population is going to relax and stop fearing the rulings.

Quote from: tenbones;806749Hating on OD&D is like hating on your ancestor that gave birth to your great-grandmother and bombing on her for wearing skins and hides instead of Yoga-pants and a thong.

She is the mother of our hobby. Treat her with respect, even if you don't understand her.

I'm on board with this.

I always think people go to far trying to balance the game.  The balance is campaign balance.  Played by the book you will see far fewer wizards make it to second level than fighters, and still fewer fighter magic-users because the versatility doesn't match up with the time frame.

I think the things that need to be done to older D&D to make it more approachable for beginners and younger players do include increasing hp at first level, giving magic-users more spells at lower levels and probably reducing how many spells they get at higher ones.

But I think more than that, somewhere, the mind set that you should expect to lose a number of characters, especially at lower levels and bad stats are simply cleaned up by attrition rather than re-rolls or points buy needs to be explained more clearly and up front by the DM.

Quote from: jhkim;806600I think it is objectively provable that we don't need rules.

We don't need rules to play, no. We do need rules to resolve disagreements about what's happening in the game.

QuoteCops and robbers is playable and complete, as demonstrated by thousands of kids actually playing it.

Sure. But maybe you're forgetting how many times kids wrestled each-other or stormed off home, etc. Now, this is a large part of the purpose of play for children, pushing the social envelope to find their limits. They learn how to deal with conflict with other people by engaging in conflict - and the conflict is not the shooting in cops & robbers, but the arguments about what happened.

That's children's play, a large part of it is pushing themselves physically, mentally and socially to improve their abilities and see where the limits are.

By adulthood the more useful of us will have more or less figured out social boundaries and methods of resolving conflicts, so we play for different reasons. Our needs are different, we don't actually want a lot of wrestling and arguments about nothing - well, some of us do, but that's what internet forums are for.

QuoteOD&D works as a game for some people; but then cops and robbers works as a game for some people. Some people *prefer* formal rules roughly as definite and complete/incomplete as OD&D - but that preference is no more objective than other people's preference for more complete formal rules like GURPS or D&D3.

To say "we need rules" is not to say, "we need detailed and exhaustive rules." Sometimes a rough sketch is enough.

I don't think we have to set OD&D on a pedestal.  We should recognize the amazing game it was, and how it created the hobby, but we don't need to pretend that it was some kind of perfect proto-game that was never improved upon.

Nah, thats the OSR peoples job dont ya know?

Quote from: RPGPundit;807331I don't think we have to set OD&D on a pedestal.  We should recognize the amazing game it was, and how it created the hobby, but we don't need to pretend that it was some kind of perfect proto-game that was never improved upon.

Agree with this. Streamlining the basics has been a great thing. However, I also think that some things considered improvements actually aren't.  Codification of minutiae via innumerable character add-ons and widgets, emphasis on "builds," has hurt the game more than helped it, IMHO.  (When do we go from "create" to "build?"  I feel there's a difference)