1st Edition D&D, How to play? Options

[Nerbert]

Believe me, I get the rules, I know how to roll the dice. How does one play? What mindset and philosophy does one need to be able to play and enjoy this game? A friend of mine is starting a very big game of great personal importance to him, and I just loathe the thought of it.

[Ancient History]

I find an addiction to Jack Vance novels and the Dragon Magazine Archive helps a bit. FOr a newcomer, I'd suggest investing heavily in Knight of the Dinner Table comics and write 'em up as "research material" on your taxes.

[Nikoli]

Are you loathe to play the setting or the system?

[Nerbert]

The setting is custom, and I don't know anything about it yet. Its really the system that bugs me.

'course, my last major character was a monk... my therapist says all it takes is time...

[fistandantilus4....]

I used to play nothing but 1st ed, with a guy DMing that was in his 50's. Best games I ever played.

What really makes it work is to get that good ol' old school feel going. He came up with the best stories. Another big part of it was to make every sort of monster capable of being something more. One of the best games involved a dire wolf (extremely intelligent dire wolf) as the enemy. Another big thing is the hordes of monsters. If the number appearing can be 300 ( say like kobolds) , let it be 300, a community. The thing that always made it the most interesting was that evil was SMART.

Lots of guilds, lots of orginizations. Ever played the original Bard's Tale? If you enjoyed that, you can enjoy first edition. Get used to the art work, it gives you a good feel. Check out the Swords and Sorcery adventure Rappan Athuk: Dungeon of Graves. One of the nastiest dungeons I've seen, but it's got a great 1st edition feel. You'vegot to get the feel of it

[Nikoli]

It takes the same mindset to play any version of any RPG as it does to play SR. Find out who the "power players" are in this world, determine how your character feels about the ones that the general populace knows about, and figure out your motivations. People look at the alignment system as too structured and rigid, that's baloney, there are infinite ways to play each alignment, if you are creative enough to see them.
D&D will always be near and dear to me, it was my first intro to RPG's, I played SR1&2, AD&D2nd, Rifts, Battletech, and a host of other short lived games all with the same bunch of guys in high school and we loved every system.
The folks on this board that love to dig on D&D or any other system for that matter other than their beloved SR need to get their head examined. We're all geeks, no matter the system we play. It's easy to dig on other systems here because we are really discouraged from in depth discussion of the other systems and as this is an SR board you gain the mob mentality of different = evil and stupid.
I also frequent the WotC forums and you know what, they don't dig on non-d20 games, ever that I've seen. This is the only game fan site that has that, which should be telling of the mindset being percalated here.

Just do what you would do with SR, figure out your motivations, give yourself a little wiggle room on the gray areas and have fun just with a sword instead of a SMG and a mage that doesn't take a nap every time he casts a spell.

[Nerbert]

The big issue is that I've played AD&D before like I said. And I didn't have a good time with it at all. I would have strings of characters not surviving more then a single session, my one surviving character was nearly useless in any situation. Character backgrounds and motivations aren't rewarded at all by the system.

Maybe I've just never played with a real pro.

[Bigity]

That can be true in any system. I run pretty lethal games in every RPG I run, and PCs die. Sometimes, if they don't think, they die alot. Sometimes, when I roll three 20s in a row, or they roll all 1s for damage staging, they die alot.

Not having PCs die, IMHO, is in no way indicative of the "pro"ness of a GM. I very much enjoy games where if my character is stupid at the wrong time, he dies. Where if the group decides to fight instead of flee with the wrong baddies, they die.

One thing to keep in mind is that at 1st level, AD&D is much more deadly then Shadowrun is to starting characters. No karma pool in AD&D, that's for sure.

[Kagetenshi]

[Bigity]

Nah, play an assasin, then you have a flat out percentage chance to kill anything.

[Nerbert]

Holy crap. Quivering Palm is a lvl 13 ability! Do you have any idea how much XP that is? You can't possibly be serious.

[Kagetenshi]

[Nerbert]

Playing a monk was so painful. You have to be able to touch someone to use Quivering Palm, and my monk couldn't even do that. *weep*

[fistandantilus4....]

moks are a pain at lowe rlevels. But by the time quivering palm comes around... god look out!

I also liked the level caps, although it screwed me more than a few times.
And the titles, nice for the feel

Grandfather of Assasins

[Bigity]

I always liked first edition bards.

[Nikoli]

Who wouldn't?

[Bigity]

3.5 newbies.

[Erebus]

Do you mean 1st Edition AD&D or the original D&D where Elf was a class?

[Bigity]

That was D&D, IIRC.

[Nikoli]

Bards are still a good choice in 3.5, though not the demi-deific they were in 1st.

[Bigity]

I prefer druids, in most versions.

[Nerbert]

I've never seen a monk survive first level. I played one from lvl 7 to lvl 9. It took a year. And one of those levels came from a lucky roll on a potion with a random effect.

[Bigity]

Doesn't mean they don't.

[Nerbert]

Ok, but this is the problem I'm having with the game. What's the point of starting a new character, playing them, developing a backstory and having them die nine out of ten times, usually ignobly, by a bear trap or a disease or something inane?

[Kagetenshi]

Y'see, you said the word "backstory". That's what levels 1-6 or so are supposed to be. The D&D approach definitely calls for disposable characters for the first few levels: it's the ones who make it to 8-10+ that get gifted with actual attention.

~J