I have been playing roleplaying games for going on 25 years.  I was fortunate enough to have had a very active FLGS near my home, a person who introduced me to the hobby (Keith Clark (brother to Kara), who used to live in Holyoke, MA, if you are out there, PM me!), and a very creative DM (Mark from the original Dragon's Lair in West Springfield, MA).  Both Keith (who used Palladium Fantasy with me) and Marc (Cyberpunk, D&D, and Shadowrun), were incredible storytellers and the games always kept me wanting more.  I guess based on that, I had come to believe that a prepublished module was not going to hold my attention.

Further, with the release of 4E and some threads on various forums suggesting that the intent of WoTC is to turn D&D back into a dungeon crawling game (which it DEFINTELY was intended to be -- see Moldvay rulebook pg. B3), I began to examine how I felt about Dungeon Crawling vs. Political Campaigns (or metaplots not involving crawling through something that can be mapped on graph paper).

This weekend I played Keep on the Shadowfell in 4E and to be honest, I was really surprised how much fun I had with a dungeon craw.  Tonight, I was lucky in that I found an original Moldvay Basic box set (with original dice and crayon and B2 Keep) for $10 in perfect condition.

I was reading the Basic rulebook and grinning from ear to ear, remembering the early days of my gaming.  What I think I determined is that some fear of death of character is needed (at least for me) to enjoy a good D&D adventure.

Lately, I have been playing with a group that have pitched ideas and started a story arc with 5-10th level characters.  With Keep on the Shadowfell, I got to play a few sessions with a 1st level character and then a 3rd (I missed a few sessions).  Even though a 3rd level 4E character can have some decent HP (I had 35 hp as a rogue), I was still brought near death's door once or twice.

Not sure what this post is intended to convey, except that I have an itching to start a Basic game with a 5 HP thief and see what happens!

I understand.

I started with brown-book D&D and black box Traveller back in late '78.

The multi-racial dungeon is as lame a concept as has ever been laid before a group, but there is something about it...something that calls.

Quote from: timrichter9;252116with the release of 4E and some threads on various forums suggesting that the intent of WoTC is to turn D&D back into a dungeon crawling game (which it DEFINTELY was intended to be -- see Moldvay rulebook pg. B3

First, I'm glad to hear you've (re)discovered elements of playing RPGs that are fun for you.

But the above quote is based on a widespread misconception. If you got into D&D in 1983, you may not have read the original game published in 1974, and you probably aren't aware of the pre-publication history of the game.

So, first, the little brown books did have dungeoncrawling as one of the "core scenarios" of play. However, they also covered "wilderness adventures" from the start.

And as for the game as it was played by Arneson's group--although the "breakthrough game" is acknowledged to have been a dungeon dive under Blackmoor castle--it included outdoor adventures and the setting up of PC-run "baronies" from a fairly early stage. Have a look at this thread and note especially the posts by Robert the Bald (Bob Meyers).

As for Moldvay, those rules were published in 1981, after both AD&D and an earlier Basic edition had been published. Now, the earlier, Holmes edition was intended as a lead-in to AD&D. The Moldvay Basic set was also not a complete game in itself, but only the first, "Basic" part of non-Advanced D&D. The rules were continued in the Expert set, and then non-Advanced D&D was revised again with the Mentzer-edited BECMI sets.

The point I wish to make is that while, without a doubt, dungeoncrawling has been a "core scenario" for D&D, and generally viewed, for various reasons, as an excellent introduction to the rules and practices of the game, it's not the entirety of what the game was intended to be--which you seem to be implying. Although if I'm mistaken about your intent, my apologies.

However, there is this widespread myth that the game was always intended to be about crunchy combat set pieces, which is presumably a mode of play that 4e excels at, and that therefore 4e is a "return to the roots" of D&D. And that is simply not true. Even at the level of the dungeoncrawl, the nature of the scenario was focused far more on exploration than on combat specifically. I know that some would say that 4e itself isn't necessarily focused on crunchy combat--and that may be how it's played in some groups. But to compare "crunchy"-style 4e with original D&D isn't really accurate.

I am by no means a D&D historian, but it seems to me that seems to me that D&D combat has always been about resource management. The idea is not just to win a combat encounter but to win  ith the least expenditure of hit points, spells and magical items so that if you are in a good enough shape to fight the next encounter.  The key strategic choice was on the lines of "Do I use my fireball against these kobolds or save it for a tougher encounter." This implies a game structured as a series of combat engagements in quick succession without giving the party a chance to rest and resupply, which is the essence of the dungeon crawl.

In a more political game or any adventure in which the fight scenes are less frequent and potentially days or even weeks apart in gameworld-time, the party enters combat almost always fully rested and supplied which entirely alters the balance between classes ( compare the effectiveness of a wizard who has to marshal his spells for the duration of a whole dungeon level with that of a wizard who can let loose with everything he has go every encounter).

You are right.  I never experienced the brown grain box D&D.  Maybe I was assuming that the Basic box (Moldvay) was merely an edited version of earlier rules and there was not much change.  Thanks for the info.

No problem. I appreciate your larger point, about the quality that a genuine danger of character death brings to the game. There are many dimensions of RPGs, for sure. I didn't play much D&D after the early 80's but it seems that the game underwent a period of emphasizing a certain kind of "story" which entailed downplaying that danger in order to guarantee character and plot continuity--basically watering down challenges and consquences of player decisions. With that as a reference point, it sounds like 4e is at least a step in the direction back toward the "roots", even though the tactical focus takes it in a different direction otherwise.