Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalPlayers Options and kits were quite different though.

The kits WERE power-creep in that you chose your class and then you got a whole load of free proficiencies and powers from your kit.  In some cases these were used as a way of bodging problems with the basic classes.

Pretty much. They pulled disads in the game and returned the notion of "cool powers for a bad attitude" to the game. You pretty much had to take a kit or you were worse off than everyone who did. And the mental quirks many kits use for compensation made the game like working with an insane asylum.

Quote from: cnath.rmWas that at the normal cleric level progression? because clerics went up faster then anything aside from thieves. I never dealt with them so I ask. (and if so, I know what I'm playing if I'm ever stuck playing 2nd ed. )

  I honestly can't remember but I THINK so.  They were never officially presented as a new class (hence the fact that it was a bodge rather than a re-design of the Cleric class) so I don't think they had different advancement tables.  

The concept of game balance was slightly slippery and almost entirely qualitative at this point and instead of effectively redesigning each specialty priest-hood using the tables in the DMG, they did weird things like giving you thief skills at 3 levels lower than your real level BUT you weren't allowed to wear metal armour.  Similarly the priest of Tempus I think it was who had weapon specialisation could only use 1 weapon.

It wasn't quite on a par with Unearthed Arcana in terms of completely fucking up a campaign but it definitely added to the sense that AD&D lacked anything even remotely resembling balance, direction or any kind of coherent design philosophy.

I'm also reminded of the Complete Bard whose kits similarly functionned as completely different classes bearing only a passing resemblance to the Bard class in the PHB.  I remember a fondness for the Blade who was essentially a bard who specialised in fighting... but in a flash way.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalPlayers Options and kits were quite different though.

The kits WERE power-creep in that you chose your class and then you got a whole load of free proficiencies and powers from your kit.  In some cases these were used as a way of bodging problems with the basic classes.

That was part of the problem with kits - their implementation. In some kits all the required proficiencies were free, while in other kits, they were required, but not free. This varied from supplement to supplement. Terrible implementation. I houseruled that immediately.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceThat was part of the problem with kits - their implementation. In some kits all the required proficiencies were free, while in other kits, they were required, but not free. This varied from supplement to supplement. Terrible implementation. I houseruled that immediately.

The problem was there was no one body working on the rules and they had poor quality control. The kit rules evolved over time... they pretty much had it down to an art by the time of the Paladin and Bard book (where the kits actually traded out abilities instead of weak attempts at compensation by bogus disads), but the books that were printed before did not share the design approach so were inconsistent and inferior compared to the newer books.

And then S&P came out, which had a whole different take on kits, which blew that away.

The situation was a mess.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI'm also reminded of the Complete Bard whose kits similarly functionned as completely different classes bearing only a passing resemblance to the Bard class in the PHB.  I remember a fondness for the Blade who was essentially a bard who specialised in fighting... but in a flash way.

That was a great book to read through, gave me lots of interesting ideas that I never used. (due to moving and not having a group for quite awhile)

Quote from: Caesar SlaadThe problem was there was no one body working on the rules and they had poor quality control. The kit rules evolved over time... they pretty much had it down to an art by the time of the Paladin and Bard book (where the kits actually traded out abilities instead of weak attempts at compensation by bogus disads), but the books that were printed before did not share the design approach so were inconsistent and inferior compared to the newer books.

And then S&P came out, which had a whole different take on kits, which blew that away.

The situation was a mess.

It's almost impossible to for me to tell whether it was 2nd edition I liked or the very extensive houserules we used. I'm beginning to think it was perhaps mostly the latter. What we all did like about 2nd ed. was the host of options for players.

-clash

Added: And that perhaps was why Options & Powers made a dull thud im my group. We had already houseruled the problems away.

"Big" Ron has an excellent article somewhere arguing that in fact, there is no such game as D&D.  There are only different bodged houseruled games all playing under the same name.

I remember houseruling the wizards and swords thing on the grounds that their THAC0 went up by one every 4 levels and they had no hitpoints... what harm could it possibly do to allow the baby to have his bottle?

Quote from: Mr. Analytical"Big" Ron has an excellent article somewhere arguing that in fact, there is no such game as D&D.  There are only different bodged houseruled games all playing under the same name.

I think that while there is some historical truth to that, the statement doesn't work as well with 3.x where there is a more coherent ruleset then 2nd ed. came up with.

Quote from: Mr. Analytical"Big" Ron has an excellent article somewhere arguing that in fact, there is no such game as D&D.  There are only different bodged houseruled games all playing under the same name.

I've read somewhere that this realization in the late 90's was one of the motivations behind 3e (written by someone working for TSR/WOTC at the time).  It was obvious that AD&D didn't really work.  Moving from one game group to another could be a bit jarring due to the different rulesets.

I think many (most?) of those who prefer to stick with the old AD&D over D20 or other rpgs are so used to their  AD&D' house rules that they are unwilling to move to an officially published game.

Somebody upthread suggested that D&D was influenced by RQ in providing clear tactical options, and somebody else said Champions was more likely. Based on the descriptions here I'd toss in The Fantasy Trip as another likely influence (which I believe is generally acknowledged to have influenced Champs BTW). Hex map, clear rules on movement sequence, weapon reach, etc. TFT grew out of a couple of "micro-games" which were small wargames put out by Metagaming, the company that originally published Ogre. Those games were basically arena combat for fighters and wizards, and like other cardboard & paper wargames they had precise rules.

Also, I thought I'd throw out that although original white/brown box D&D was essentially unplayable without being taught the rules, once you added the Greyhawk supplement, things fell into place pretty nicely. It wasn't quite as clean as TFT, though. Judges Guild published a set of Dungeon Tac Cards which also improved the tactical options and made using the AC weapon bonuses from Greyhawk semi-usable.

Does RC use the same hit dice as AD&D? I remember that AD&D threw away backward compatibility with OD&D by using bigger hit dice for some classes. (Refreshing my memory with Wikipedia) in Greyhawk they had Thieves & Wizards d4, Clerics d6, Fighters d8. Monsters were d6 IIRC.

Quote from: Mr. Analytical"Big" Ron has an excellent article somewhere arguing that in fact, there is no such game as D&D.  There are only different bodged houseruled games all playing under the same name.

I really like that article, but his conclusion is crap.  You might as well say there's no such thing as rock 'n' roll because the label applies to a broad vary of very different types of music.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen... Does RC use the same hit dice as AD&D? I remember that AD&D threw away backward compatibility with OD&D by using bigger hit dice for some classes. (Refreshing my memory with Wikipedia) in Greyhawk they had Thieves & Wizards d4, Clerics d6, Fighters d8. Monsters were d6 IIRC.

RC uses the original hit dice (as you list), not the AD&D hit dice.  However, monsters were d8.

wuh-wuh-what?  Wizards were d4, Rogues were d6, Priests were d8 and Warriors were d10.  Monsters were a d8 though.  For Sha-a-a-a-ame.

As for "Big" Ron, his point doesn't apply to 3rd edition and onwards anyway but yes, the problem with his view is that if you use his standards, then practically none of us play the same game because we all have house-rules or little variants on how games work.  Obviously this view of gaming exists purely as a counterpoint to the Forgite cannon whereby games are "about" something and aren't supposed to be flexible beyond that.

Quote from: Mr. Analyticalwuh-wuh-what?  Wizards were d4, Rogues were d6, Priests were d8 and Warriors were d10.  Monsters were a d8 though.  For Sha-a-a-a-ame...

Not in the Rules Cyclopedia.  I feel no shame about being correct.

Being the old man on these boards let me fill in a few holes.

I know Gary Gygax, Gary Gygax is a friend of mine. Gary Gygax is not what you'd call an organized writer. He doesn't work from a formal outline, and his writing style is definitely stream of consciousness. The man defines "run-on sentence".

Back when he started working on AD&D he was feuding with Dave Arneson. Gary wanted Dave out of the picture, and designed AD&D with that in mind. As he later told me back in 1993, he did AD&D so he could cut Arneson out of his share of the royalties on D&D.

Dave sued, had decisions go his way. Gary authorized BD&D in an attempt to mollify the court. The court didn't buy it. But, before the matter could be settled one way or another Gary got ousted, Lorraine took over, and she proved just as vindictive as Gary was.

Williams then decided that she was going to cut Gary out of the picture by doing a new edition of D&D. One written to disassociate itself from what would known as AD&D1e. Which resulted in TSR facing civil actions from both Gygax and Arneson.

At this point I must mention that the TSR of the time, Williams era and pre-Williams, was not all that hot on actual game development. What development got done on a game depended on the person writing it. From Holmes through Alston the D&D game was in the hands of somebody who was actually organized. And who took the pains to develop the game. In addition, those who follwed Dr. Holmes were able to build on his capable work, and those of the others who preceded them. By the time Aaron wrote the D&D RC he had a good deal of previous work to call upon.

Both versions of AD&D, 1e and 2e, were deliberately designed and written so their publishers could claim - however futilely in the end - they really had nothing to do with D&D beyond the most superficial. With AD&D 2e designed and written so the Williams TSR could claim it really had nothing to do with 1e. Thus the "derivative work" claim, which the courts decided didn't mean what TSR's lawyers said they meant. Rather the opposite as a matter of fact.

Thus we come to the end of part one of this essay. Part two when I return.