Quote from: fearsomepirate;980287It's not just about your more wargame-inspired scenarios, either. Here's a very simple, classic type scenario:

The Ogre King/Ghoul Lord/Death Knight/[insert favorite BBEG] is brooding in his Boss Chamber. The classic Fighter/Cleric/Thief/Wizard party bursts in. "Ho there, evil foe!" cries out the fighter, as he charges forward with sword in hand. And behold, the BBEG and the fighter are now locked in deadly combat!

In OD&D, AD&D 1e, every variant of Basic, and AD&D 2e, in this scenario, the fighter tangles up close and personal with his mighty blade, with the cleric providing some secondary melee support, dropping back when healing or some other buff is needed. The rogue plinks or tries to get a backstab, and the wizard provides the heavy artillery. Since initiative is side-based, and the guys in heavy armor busted down the door first, it kind of doesn't matter who wins, as this is what is going to happen.

Except in AD&D and other classic editions there nothing to stop the BBEG from ignoring the fighter and moving on the magic-user. The worse case scenario is are the rules like Retreat on page X24 of the Expert Rules

QuoteRETREAT. Any movement backwards at more than V2 the normal movement rate is a retreat. If a creature tries to retreat, the opponent may add + 2 to all "to hit" rolls, and the defender is not allowed to make a return attack. In addition to the bonus on "to hit" rolls, the attacks are further adjusted by using the defender's Armor Class without a shield. (Any attacks from behind are adjusted in the same manner.)

The BBEG run past the fighter at full move. The fighter attacks at +2, the BBEG is completes is move in melee range of the wizard. Depending on much of stickler for rules details the group is, you could consider the BBEG unable to attack.

In short it is a situation similar to what is found in later edition. The difference that later editions attempt to handle the corner cases within the text and the above is all that B/X says on the topic and leaves it the referee to rule.

An argument can be made that movement must cease once you enter melee range. In which case it take the BBEG two rounds to reach the wizard.

In all editions of D&D the consideration of the referee is the same. It is worth soaking the extra hits in order for the BBEG to take out the wizards.

I don't have the time to check references for accuracy at the moment, but I think fearsome pirate covered this:

Quote from: fearsomepirate;980145Page 70, 1e DMG:
"If characters or similar intelligent creatures are able to single out an opponent or opponents, then the concerned figures will remain locked in melee until one side is dead or opts to attempt to break out of combat."

In the 2e manual, there are 3 kinds of listed movement for melee:
1. Into melee range
2. Withdrawing
3. Fleeing

The idea of moving through melee isn't even contemplated. Moving into melee range is described as the "basic" maneuver. Chainmail and Holmes reflect the same idea. Mentzer is a bit more clear in stating unequivocally that your only maneuvers in melee are "Fighting Withdrawal" and "Retreat." If you look at any of the TSR editions, when one moves into melee, one's only options are to either stay in melee or retreat; there is no option to continue forward, draw an opportunity attack or some other penalty, and engage the back line.

So I think his argument is that the earlier edition books in effect say that you can't just ignore the fighter and go on to the magic user. Naturally, it doesn't answer that "but what if I do?" because you can't (cue  5 page argument on whether that's genius writing or an abdication of responsibility).

Quote from: estar;980321Except in AD&D and other classic editions there nothing to stop the BBEG from ignoring the fighter and moving on the magic-user. The worse case scenario is are the rules like Retreat on page X24 of the Expert Rules

If the fighter's already engaged him in melee, the BBEG's only options are to fight to the death or retreat.

QuoteThe BBEG run past the fighter at full move. The fighter attacks at +2, the BBEG is completes is move in melee range of the wizard. Depending on much of stickler for rules details the group is, you could consider the BBEG unable to attack.

What I'm really being a stickler for here is the concept of "advancing" and "retreating." You're interpreting moving deeper into enemy forces as "retreating." I don't read it that way. As I interpret it, moving past the fighter through his zone of control isn't "retreating;" it's "advancing." Once you hit zone the dude with a sword controls, your options are fight, or move the other direction. Continuing forward isn't on the table. Someone can correct me if I'm completely wrong here. That's just how I understand the text.

QuoteIn short it is a situation similar to what is found in later edition. The difference that later editions attempt to handle the corner cases within the text and the above is all that B/X says on the topic and leaves it the referee to rule.

I don't think this is the difference. It seems to me that the early rules are framed in terms of coherent battle lines. It is quite obvious when I have a line of a dozen spearmen in formation with archers and artillery behind them what the "front line" is, where "forward" is, and where "backward" is. The language of combat is consistently framed in these terms all the way through at least Mentzer Basic, probably 2e as well. This is also why initiative is per side, rather than per individual. The sides are often described as forming battle lines.

The problem is these rules dissolve into incoherence in what eventually became the typical situation of 4-6 PCs fighting in a room, especially when using minis. Once people have spread out a bit, there's no longer an obvious "front line" or "forward" direction. So beginning with 3rd edition, the rules are reframed in terms of the individual PC (and 3.5 onward, the individual token on the grid) rather than battle lines and formations. The rules were made clear and consistent, but the ability to meaningfully control space was lost in the process.

Well, the "reaction time doesn't matter" is a total falsehood for starters, since if Horrible Spellcaster gets initiative, "eat Fireball" or whatever.

Also, if the big evil bad guy monster is sitting around in his chamber all alone with no defenses, he's too stupid to shit unassisted and deserves to die immediately anyway.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;980256Yes, and I for one think this is the real issue. Three characters per 10' frontage works very well when 1) the party is sufficiently large, and 2) the landscapes are sufficiently constrained that you can count on one hand (or a bit more) the 10' frontages needed to block off the back lines from the enemy. When playing oD&D/bD&D/1e AD&D with 6-8 players and a troop of hirelings going into dungeons with 10-20' corridors, this works perfectly. As I've said before, early D&D works phenomenally, when played under the assumption of play for which it was designed.

So one needs a small army to back them up, like a miniatures war game, as opposed to a role playing game?  That DOES change a lot of the assumptions.  I don't have a minis/war game background, so that does influence a lot of my play style.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;980256The problem is that, as player preference of gaming style changed, the rules did not change to match. Gaming groups have tended to shrink to more link 4 players, so that drops the # of characters. Players have usually not wanted to play a bunch of lower-level npcs as well, so hirelings have fallen to a 0-2 per PC kind of thing. And more of the adventuring has moved out of the dungeon. I am not going to say that one playstyle is superior, but I will say that the rules did not keep up. If you are going to play such that spellcasters can't keep out of the range of the enemies, than you can't have squishy spellcasters.

The issue I have, is that the game's assumptions have changed and evolved over the past 3 decades, but the innate mechanics may not have.  Which creates an odd disconnect in how things should be done in the game's system.

Here's the problem I've seen since my 2e days:  If the Magic User players are smart, and the Monsters (and by monsters I'm talking everything from Kobolds to the titular Dragons) are as well, you often end up with a Magic/Ranged Sniping match between them, where the other players are effectively on mop up detail.  Most 'boss' monsters (Goblin leaders, Orc chieftans, and shaman and so one, the leaders and warlords) have a guard detail with them at all times, or if they have the mobility, the means to keep most of the party away from them.  Very rarely you'll have people with any sort of tactical backgrounds playing nowadays.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;9802565e has finally sorta recognized this, and responded by at least allowing you to make high AC (bladesinger, 1 level fighter or cleric multiclass dipping, or hill dwarf), high hp (abjurer), or high luck (diviner) wizards. If you don't play with those specific options, though, it seems that the books expect the enemies to not eat the opportunity attack and rush past the front lines to take out the bigger threat/lower defense spellcasters.

I've had to give all fighting classes the Sentinel Feat for free in a couple of games.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;980256Yeah, but not for much of their adventuring, and certainly not squads of 3 soldiers per 10' (plus backups for those who fall). Much of the S&S heroes were most often not playing squad tactics. They also were very much of the vein of 'the protagonists are not squishies, they belong in the front line,' even Mouser. I think this might have been part of the movement away from large squad tactics in that people wanted to play these types of characters, who could get into a comingled front line fight and somehow survive.

That's where I'm coming from. I don't think this issue happened between TSR and WotC, I think it was that time of the oD&D fad-bubble and the movement from wargamers to college kids who wanted to play as Fafhrd, Mouser, Conan, Elric, (Frodo, Strider, Merlin), and not as squad commanders.

But, and I may be honestly mis-remembering here, but wasn't one of the core conceits of original D&D being Conan of Cimmeria?  I mean, Gronan's current forum name (which I believe he's claimed was based on his original character, way back when) is an allusion to it.  Am I wrong?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;980256That's where I'm coming from. I don't think this issue happened between TSR and WotC, I think it was that time of the oD&D fad-bubble and the movement from wargamers to college kids who wanted to play as Fafhrd, Mouser, Conan, Elric, (Frodo, Strider, Merlin), and not as squad commanders.

Actually it was in 78 or 79 when TSR made the conscious decision to market to the 13 to 18 demographic.

How many times have I said OD&D was "written by wargamers for wargamers?"  Enough that I've lost count.  And of COURSE play preferences changed, because the wargamer market all bought OD&D.

As you said, OD&D works great when played by wargamers ("under the assumption of play for which it was designed".)

Although I need to note that a lot of us DID adventure solo.  Just not at first level.

Well, except for poor Lessnard, but that's another story.

The whole point of the game was player skill, and you wanted to be sure your skill was high enough.

And then people who sucked at that play style got put in charge of 3E.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980330Also, if the big evil bad guy monster is sitting around in his chamber all alone with no defenses, he's too stupid to shit unassisted and deserves to die immediately anyway.

Maybe he's socially awkward.

Anyway, the point is that playing 5e in a rules-logical way (because many of the premises of OD&D no longer have mechanical representation) means you could beat the shit out of parties pretty easily.

But maybe I should start doing that.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;980343Anyway, the point is that playing 5e in a rules-logical way (because many of the premises of OD&D no longer have mechanical representation) means you could beat the shit out of parties pretty easily.

But maybe I should start doing that.

I don't see how a typical 5e medium encounter can beat the shit out of a typical party. It just seems totally alien to what I've seen. Wizards can easily use magic like mage armour & shield to have good ACs.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980144There IS no agreement.

If their front rank is not sufficiently dense to block movement, characters behind the front rank WILL get meleed.  It's a major killer of 3rd edition and later players; they think in terms of 5 feet per figure, whereas OD&D allows 3 figures in a ten foot frontage.
.

This is what I am used to as well with BX and AD&D. Not sure about 2e but fairly sure they kept the 3 as well.

Quote from: Opaopajr;980310This reads like a "Saves War" reminiscent of D&D 3e or Exalted... This is not a good thing.

Spreading more save resistance around inherently tamps down 'save or suck/pwn' attrition wars, which could only be a good thing, IMO. I need to test out my Houserule to Saves soon.

And then what do you have? Everyone has even saves and whats the point other than homogenizing the whole dam thing so no one can cry "oh boo hoo hoo! I can for not saves as good as that mean ol thief can vs dwagons! Why god why is this game so unfair to me!"

Quote from: Omega;980412And then what do you have? Everyone has even saves and whats the point other than homogenizing the whole dam thing so no one can cry "oh boo hoo hoo! I can for not saves as good as that mean ol thief can vs dwagons! Why god why is this game so unfair to me!"

Big middle there, cowboy! Oh, I dunno, the game could go back to whittling away HP with tactics and big swingy "I win" saves return to frosty sprinkles on top? Just sayin'. :rolleyes: Unclench from your protectiveness of 5e's honor.

I'm going to pre-emptively declare all my responses here with a "It is my contention that..." so assume it before each response.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;980336So one needs a small army to back them up, like a miniatures war game, as opposed to a role playing game?  That DOES change a lot of the assumptions.  

You don't have to. It is, how it was designed to be played, and where there are the least number of issues. The game assumes that a line of heavily armored soldiers are up in front, keeping the enemies from getting to soft, easily slain magic users. It is also designed with the assumption that most engagements happen in environments where this can be accomplished (such as dungeons). A theoretical 'D&D, in all ways but this' game where these assumptions aren't in place could have different rules--such as not having unarmored wizards, and having intercept-the-advancing-monster rules that increase zones-of-control. TSR-era D&D doesn't have these, because they aren't needed within the way it is designed to be played.

QuoteThe issue I have, is that the game's assumptions have changed and evolved over the past 3 decades, but the innate mechanics may not have.  Which creates an odd disconnect in how things should be done in the game's system.

Well, the mechanics have changed. Not at the pace I think would be prudent to their playing audience and in some cases not for the best for solving given issues (see fearsome and I's discussion on toothless opportunity attacks).

QuoteHere's the problem I've seen since my 2e days:  If the Magic User players are smart, and the Monsters (and by monsters I'm talking everything from Kobolds to the titular Dragons) are as well, you often end up with a Magic/Ranged Sniping match between them, where the other players are effectively on mop up detail.  Most 'boss' monsters (Goblin leaders, Orc chieftans, and shaman and so one, the leaders and warlords) have a guard detail with them at all times, or if they have the mobility, the means to keep most of the party away from them.

And the PC front-liners engage the guard detail while the chieftains, shamans, and so on engage in a long range sniping contest. Tactics are used, people make decisions. To the side with the best thinkers or better numbers go the victory. You haven't explained what the problem with this is. If you are playing such that the Monsters side front-liners can't rush past the heroes' front line any more than the reverse, this seems to be the game working as intended. If the DM isn't enforcing this "can't rush past" rule, then the DM is selectively neglecting the rules in the Monster's favor (especially since their chieftain often gets to cast spells with a lower AC, because monster stats). If you are playing in a small group, and most of your encounters happen out of dungeons, and Monsters can just run around the PC front liners to get to the wizard, then yes, game not fitting with new assumptions, and I believe that version of the game needs some house-rules such as zone-of-control interception or tougher magic users.

QuoteBut, and I may be honestly mis-remembering here, but wasn't one of the core conceits of original D&D being Conan of Cimmeria?  I mean, Gronan's current forum name (which I believe he's claimed was based on his original character, way back when) is an allusion to it.  Am I wrong?

This is where I get really navel-gazing, so I might go off the rails here. People spend entirely too much time thinking about the 'core conceits' of D&D, or 'what, in essence, D&D is.' And it's all bull. There is no there there. There are no core conceits to oD&D, except that it is a game based on taking a miniatures tactical war/skirmish ruleset, and using it to play a game where you go into a MC(called a 'DM')-controlled environment, attempting to gain a goal (gp/xp, plus items that will help you on your next outing), while engaging or avoiding obstacles, as it seems prudent. D&D has a flavor or theme based on a collection of fiction that decidedly includes Conan. But that isn't a core conceit.

The rules aren't specifically designed to allow you to seamlessly play Conan, as he acted in the fiction, and come out alive. A lot of things Conan did, if you think about it, were foolhardy things that would get him killed if his luck ever ran out. He, like lots of fictional characters, always rolls crits when he needs to (I'm in particular thinking Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, where he trades gunfire with massively multiple mooks at point blank range, often not even seeking cover, and coming out only man standing). The (meta-)physics of Conan's world favor success using that strategy. The physics of the D&D universe favor doing what is smart moves for small-squad army engagements.

I will say, and this was my original contention, that  after the game was introduced and started to become really popular (particularly out of the wargaming population), a large portion of the people buying it started saying something along the lines of, "this is really fun, but I wanted to play Conan of Cimmeria, not squad captain Conan of the Cimmeronian armed forces." I am genuinely surprised that either 1) TSR didn't make more changes to the actual game rules to facilitate this game-play, since they clearly decided to market to this audience in all things except rules*, or 2) some other game that did wouldn't have become the most popular system (just shows how useful name recognition and being first really is). My only guess is that everyone just played in a way, possibly with house rules, that this wasn't a problem.
*We could argue all day about how many rules they did change for this audience, but I'm specifically talking about the squishy wizards/front-line-needing-large-squads-lots-of-people-didn't-want-to-play-with issue.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980338Actually it was in 78 or 79 when TSR made the conscious decision to market to the 13 to 18 demographic.

Miscommunication on my part. Mixing whether I'm talking about the designers or the audience. TSR started marketing to them then, because they had been becoming a greater and greater portion of the people buying D&D over time (when do you suppose they overtook wargamers-closer to '74 or closer to '78/'79?).

QuoteHow many times have I said OD&D was "written by wargamers for wargamers?"  Enough that I've lost count.  And of COURSE play preferences changed, because the wargamer market all bought OD&D.

As you said, OD&D works great when played by wargamers ("under the assumption of play for which it was designed".)

And this is a mantra I keep hounding on. Most of the complaints* about oD&D are pretty much people reviewing a really well crafted flower vase and complaining that it dribbles horribly when they drink from it.
*excepting those about the organization of the books, etc., which, honestly, if Gary knew we'd be critiquing that 40 years later, he would have put another week into, lesson learned.

QuoteAlthough I need to note that a lot of us DID adventure solo.  Just not at first level.

Well, except for poor Lessnard, but that's another story.

I'd buy the first round to hear that story.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;980343But maybe I should start doing that.

If you want your players to rise to the challenge, as far as tactical skills, sure. However, I'll raise two points

• There are actual rules that might reward, say, real-world good tactical thinking, that are simply not present in the 5e rules. If you up the difficulty and make the players have to 'think better' to succeed. They might think 'better' in the way that the ruleset does reward (such as extremely cheesy rules exploits or builds).
  
• If I create a gaming experience that rewards playing squad captain to a pike-hedge of hirelings, and my players come to me and say, "I really wanted to play Conan, Xena, movie-Aragorn, or an Arnold Schwarzenegger character, not squad captain Joe." what happens? Who is being more reasonable? Sure, in the real world, the cinematic hero character is technically being tactically stupid, but unless the players are wargamers, realistic tactical brilliance might not be their highest priority.