Quote from: lev_lafayetteMind you, has anyone ever played the AD&D rules as they were written?

I'm sure there's one or two people on Dragonsfoot... but I know that Gary didn't play with things like Psionics and Weapons vs AC adjustments.  Since there was so much encouragement to change / ignore rules that don't work for you, I don't see that as a problem with the game.  Some people like more crunch, and others want the gameplay to be more streamlined.

Quote from: lev_lafayetteMind you, has anyone ever played the AD&D rules as they were written?

Second Edition?  Absolutely.
 
I can't comment much on 1st edition material because our group made the transition from Basic D&D to AD&D pretty much when the 2nd edition came out.  We played it pretty much as written for a number of years.  Most of the optional rules were used, but we never really used any supplements (despite owning quite a lot of them).

Quote from: lev_lafayetteI would have rather he'd written a shorter book and paid more attention to consistency, correct emphasis, conciseness, playability etc. Still, this is all ancient history now and the world has moved on.

Similar criticisms can be laid at a number of modern games.

QuoteI would have rather he'd written a shorter book and paid more attention to consistency, correct emphasis, conciseness, playability etc.

You are an intellectual douchebag. Sophomoric reasoning, if any.

AD&D 1st was a decent if not grandiose product. Because it had a target audience, whiith their own history and their own receptional values.
For all others, there was D&D to get into the game.
And if you grokked the Red or Moldvay Box, you took AD&D as a toolbox for "Advancing".

Don´t you even consider what and whom AD&D was written for?

It´s amazing this whole shit is still in somebodies brains, where have twenty years of debate gone?


I´m sad you don´t belong to the target audience. The first step is to seperate your puny little values from the rest of the world.

Because they are not the same.

Settembrini: you are arguing with the same guy who considers AD&D 1st edition a "single-unit wargame" and "chess with dice". Somehow I doubt there is a chance for fruitful discussion here. :rolleyes:

That´s why I chose my words as I did.

Quote from: SettembriniDon´t you even consider what and whom AD&D was written for?

Here's the thing: He doesn't have to. You can all get your panties in a twist because he panned AD&D, but he doesn't have to look at it from a historical perspective. Looking at A&D with an eye for modern values and tastes is perfectly acceptable.

Seanchai

Quotefor modern values and tastes

Please list them, those "modern" values.

Quote from: SeanchaiHere's the thing: He doesn't have to. You can all get your panties in a twist because he panned AD&D, but he doesn't have to look at it from a historical perspective. Looking at A&D with an eye for modern values and tastes is perfectly acceptable.

Would you look at Johnny Cash or [your favorite dead musician here] with an eye for modern tastes and values? Would you claim that contemporary pop music has invalidated his music?

It's my old lament: RPGs are played by a disproportionately high number of people in tech and business jobs, and they're routinely trotting out the microchip development analogy. But RPGs are actually hybrids--part maths, part culture.

The culture part may actually be shaping the maths part: What kind of task resolution do we want? How much of it? How pervasive? Should it model the flight pattern of air sharks? Etc.

Quote from: SettembriniPlease list them, those "modern" values.

Why?

Seanchai

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWould you look at Johnny Cash or [your favorite dead musician here] with an eye for modern tastes and values?

I wouldn't because it's my favorite dead musician. What I might do, however, is look at the work of another dead musician I'm just now being introduced to with an eye for modern tastes and values. It is, after all, now and not whatever decade said musician died in.

And what's wrong with that? What's invalid about that? Why do we always have to critique with qualifiers?

I'm not saying that looking at AD&D with an eye toward the tastes back when it was produced or it's target audience then is any less valid than what I'm suggesting above either. I'm saying both are valid ways of approaching a work and getting your panties in a twist over it is dumb.

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiI wouldn't because it's my favorite dead musician. What I might do, however, is look at the work of another dead musician I'm just now being introduced to with an eye for modern tastes and values. It is, after all, now and not whatever decade said musician died in.

And what's wrong with that? What's invalid about that? Why do we always have to critique with qualifiers?

I'm not saying that looking at AD&D with an eye toward the tastes back when it was produced or it's target audience then is any less valid than what I'm suggesting above either. I'm saying both are valid ways of approaching a work and getting your panties in a twist over it is dumb.

OK, if that's the argument then I have no problem with it at all. But Lev is making a claim for the inexorable march of progress in RPG design. (Which FYI is based on his infatuation with RuneQuest--see his AD&D review on rpg.net.)

QuoteWhy?

Because you can´t. Because they don´t exist.
There is no "modern" in roleplaying.

Except for art and printing.

Yanno, there's something really kind of sad about someone carrying a grudge against a stupid game for over 30 years.  

AD&D isn't the most perfect game, in fact I pretty much hate it.  But I'm not writing hackjob "reviews" of it that are nothing more than my own personal axe to grind, and I think the very approval of said reviews on RPGnet jsut goes to show the problem with the site's excessive openness when it comes to the approval process.

I also don't buy the technology theory of RPGs, that there's really much in the way of "progress" in the development of roleplaying games.  games are different, not better.  There's advantages to every approach, and I've yet to see one that was clearly superior to another, outside of actually unusable rulessets, of which AD&D is most certainly not, no matter how much I may dislike it.

Perhaps my favorite quotes from a single paragraph of a single post from that discussion on tBP, and why it's so amusing to me to watch people defend it as "we're just looking at it from a more modern perspective" and similar approaches...

Quote from: thurgon on RPGNetLeaving aside the question, raised above by Sergio, as to whether AD&D is a good kill & loot game at all, I think Lev is reviewing it as an RPG, and it is reasonable to conclude that a book which does nothing but offer narrow support (and incomplete support - where are the reward rules, or the rules about perception and ambushes?) for kill & loot is not all that good an RPG book.

Note the scorn, the ridicule, the vitriol included in the simple classification: AD&D is kill & loot and that does not equal RPG.

Quote from: thurgon on RPGNetA clear implication of Lev's review, for example, is that the book lacks the depth to support that degree of characterisation or contextualisation that elevates RPGing above mere beer-&-pretzels dice-rolling. This may be, but need not be, a criticism of the game for being gamist its orientation. It could simply be a criticism of it for being shallow in a particular way (eg particularly crude, uninspiring or unexciting gamism).

See, AD&D is "mere beer-&-pretzles dice rolling" as opposed to the more sophisticated, elevated characterization or contextualism. And while AD&D might be a gamist game (Ahh, GNS, allowing us to be redundent since 2001), it's a shallow one at that.

And all of this is not necessarily a criticism of this type of game.  Right...