Tales of Usenet: AD&D Sucks! (and they tell why)

Grognardia asks a question about the infamous TSR web policy here. This got me spelunking into Google Groups as much of the online discussion occurred in the various usenet groups.

The search led as far back as 1981 when I run across this gem.

Apparently one Rich Magill has the honor of being the first troll to take a shot at AD&D.

AD&D sucks for all the previously given reasons. Try The Fantasy Trip
or better yet *****TRAVELLER******!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rich Magill

Later on we see the first of the many "thoughtful" exchanges on why AD&D sucks

unc!tim
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More options Oct 20 1982, 6:28 am
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
From: unc!tim
Date: Wed Oct 20 06:28:39 1982
Local: Wed, Oct 20 1982 6:28 am
Subject: AD&D sucks

In a possibly vain attempt to get some discussion on this group, I will now come out of the closet
publicly and say I think that Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is a very poor excuse for a game. Gary Gygax has no conception of how books are actually used in a play situation, and a very poor ability to understand hand-to-hand combat. Further, the magic system is totally counter-intuitive. Finally, the importance of magic items (as well as the ideas of class and level) depersonalizes characters, leading to a "rogue"- type environment. (Oh yes, the description of gods in terms of hit dice, etc., is totally useless to the DM, and the unarmed combat system is an atrocity; sorry to have forgotten these.) The only reason that AD&D is the most popular FRP game around is that it has a major lead on the others--unfortunately, TSR has not used this time to improve the rules, only to lengthen them.

The only game I know of that's worse than AD&D, aside from basic D&D, is Tunnels and Trolls. Both RuneQuest and The Fantasy Trip provide much better alternatives, and I am told that SPI's DragonQuest (now owned by TSR) is hard to learn but very smooth once one learns it. I strongly recommend that any AD&D player buy RuneQuest and play a few games before further glorifying their rather primitive game.

I suppose I should be afraid to sign my name,
Tim Maroney (unc!tim)


rabbit!jj
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More options Oct 20 1982, 12:47 pm
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
From: rabbit!jj
Date: Wed Oct 20 12:47:02 1982
Local: Wed, Oct 20 1982 12:47 pm
Subject: Re: AD&D sucks

Well, who do you think is going argue with you? Not me, and I've only been using ad&d (yes, Gary, it's copyrighted) for about 4 years to administer a huge campaign. The magic rules are ridiculous, the hand-hand combat makes less sense than using a quarterstaff (and a quarterstaff DOESN't help your AC , com on now, I use a staff, and see if I am as easy to hit when I have a staff as when I do not).
The reason that I used ad&d was that it was the only well described system on the market when I started DM'ing.
Face it, d&d was the FIRST system generally out, and it was certainly better than anything else (i.e. nothing). Since it couldn't benefit from experience, it has lots of problems.
Hopefully, a revision will come out someday that UPDATES ad&d to the current level of complexity and sophistication, and provide a system that is a bit more playable in the long run.
As for the "organization" of the books, I couldn't agree more.
Take a look at DragonQuest (tm-BANTAM BOOKS!!!!!!) to see something that is better organized. DQ's rights, except for movie rights, are now owned by Bantam, who is distributing it with their normal line to lots of bookstores, which should increase the distribution of the game
quite a bit. For some strange reason, TSR still owns the movie rights, whatever they amount to. Apparantly SPI had already made a deal with Bantam before TSR called in their loan, and TSR had to stick with it, and


More options Oct 21 1982, 12:48 am
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
From: cbosgd!bsw
Date: Thu Oct 21 00:48:30 1982
Local: Thurs, Oct 21 1982 12:48 am
Subject: Re: AD&D sucks

Ok,so AD&D sucks shit. But what makes the others so much better ?
What are the prices of better frp systems ? are they totally different
or what (ie. are there levels ? ac,hp,etc.?) ?

I'm almost not afraid to sign my name,

Ben Walls
...cbosgd!bsw


watmath!bstempleton
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More options Oct 22 1982, 12:12 am
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
From: watmath!bstempleton
Date: Fri Oct 22 00:12:07 1982
Local: Fri, Oct 22 1982 12:12 am
Subject: Re: AD&D sucks

For all who say AD&D sucks, I will have to agree that Gygax is far from perfect. The following should be remembered - D&D is just a game, and is not supposed to be realistic. If it were realistic, you would get chopped in half and spill real blood. Quite often you want to play a non-realistic scheme. The combat system is one that can be understood by novices and this is good for the game.

Secondly, just about everybody plays d&d quite differently, so nobody really pays that much attention to the tsr rules. They are a handy thing to base something on, and something that somebody from accross the continent can play with. If anybody in my dungeon quotes gygax, I
just say: Oh, so that's how he plays it. Interesting.

I have played with many many combat and magic systems, and find that many people, in their desire to do better, often do worse.


physics:els
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More options Oct 22 1982, 2:11 am
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
From: Physics:els
Date: Fri Oct 22 02:11:51 1982
Local: Fri, Oct 22 1982 5:11 am
Subject: Re: AD&D sucks

I learned my D&D before the other thing was around. I like to think that I play the way the game was meant to be played, by using a few tables and a copy of Greyhawk as a LOOSE guideline, arbitrarily remolding things to suit my whims. This puts the DM in a much more omnipotent role. Combat is much more realistic if the DM randomly makes a character slip and fall under the swords of 15 berserkers, etc. Magic may also be made less silly. Besides, I enjoy the look of despair on the faces of AD&Ders when I throw them a curve!

els[Eric Strobel]
pur-ee!pur-phy!els

Looks like Eric Strobel wins the Old School award in this exchange. And watmath the "dudes chill out" award.

Some AD&D House Rules

I don't believe I am going to find that page of House Rules for AD&D anytime soon. When I do, I will scan it and post so you can see it for yourselves.

The main "innovation" of my house rules for my AD&D game was my XP rules. I quickly got tired of awarding XP for Gold found. It made AD&D into a game not fun for me to referee as players focused on looting and complained whenever the focus shifted away from those activities (like dungeon crawls) that had loot as one of the rewards. To their credit most of my players said they rather be doing the other things but they want to be rewarded for doing so.

So I jettisoned the whole XP for gold. In its place I created an roleplaying award. Rather than try to break everything down into 100 xp for that, 50 xp for this. I instead created a factor from 1 to 5 with 3 being typical. At the end of a session I would give everybody this number.

Before the campaign started I decided on a base xp. This ranged from 50 xp to 150 xp. To get your xp award for roleplaying you multiplied the factor by the base xp times your level. So if you got a 4 for the session and you were 2nd level you would get 800 xp for roleplaying.

I tried 50 xp, 100 xp, and 150 xp. 50 xp makes for multiple session at each level, 100 xp means about 2 or 3 xp for each level slowly stretching out as you get higher. 150 xp is a lot quicker too quick in my opinion.

The factor was award based on how well the player roleplayed. Which was judged on the basis of alignment, background, class, and personal goals. I judged on the basis of what the players decided for themselves not what I wanted them to be. This is an important distinction. Given two fighters I would judge their roleplaying differently if one was trying to become a baron and the other the richest merchant in City-State.

It is a fuzzy process I know but it worked well. Basically there were a lot of 3 awarded, 4 handed out when a milestone is reached, and a 5 if they finally achieved a important goal. 5's were also awarded for sessions with great moments. The 1's or 2's were awarded rarely and generally only for players that came to the table and acting disruptive out of game.

Toward the end of my refereeing AD&D I all but jettisoned alignment in favor of character background and xp for magic items as well. Switching later to Fantasy Hero and GURPS was a natural fit for my style as the factors switched to build points

Another House rule concerned training costs. Basically those classes with natural skills like fighters and thieves didn't have to pay for training while those with study like clerics and magic-users do. I don't remember the exact rules only that there notes on all the classes as to when training needs to be paid for. For example I believe thieves had to start paying for training once they can read magic scrolls. One side benefit of this that the "boring" classes like fighter became a lot more attractive.

The Dragonlance Hardback really opened my eyes as to what can be done with the class and level system of AD&D. I had some stuff on reworking the cleric classes as well other classes to reflect the organizations I developed for my Majestic Wilderlands. If I had continued with AD&D the diversity of classes would have continued to grow. Especially with 2nd edition having kits and speciality priests.

What happening in the Attic, August 2009

Currently I am working on a product for the Old School Renaissance. Those of you who have been following this blog have seen snippets of various parts. It been exciting to write but also a struggle as I find I had a lot more to say than I originally thought. It one thing to write up notes for your weekly game quite another to put it in a form to be usable by total strangers. In short what I thought I would be able to release in July is now stretching into late August.

I won't know how Points of Light II did until late August. Points of Lights sold OK but not as well as the other items in Goodman Game's line. Just go to RPGNow and click on Goodman Games. You can get a good idea of relative sales. I appreciate all the kind words and reviews that were given for both products. I can say that I own the rights to the text of Points of Light so if the line doesn't get picked up again by Goodman Games I will continue it under a different name.

My house has a nice over the garage apartment. Well it nice except for the fact its water pipes are too exposed and I have continue issues with freezing. When I first moved here my RPG stuff was somewhat disorganized. It remained that way when I got married and had to move a lot of stuff into the garage to make room for Kelly Anne and more still when the kids were born. When I quit renting the apartment I never really took advantage of the space until this summer.

I went on a rampage through both of my garage getting rid of a lot of junk and crap. When I did that I finally had the room to sort all my personal stuff. The first of course was my RPG games. For the first time in 15 years I have everything properly sorted and organized. Fortunately there were only a few casualties the bulk of my stuff was still intact including all my notes for various games.

I collected pretty heavily from junior high (age 14) until I got married. After I got married I still bought on a regular basis but I much more discerning. The only things I will go for automatically is GURPS and Harn. Traveller should be on the automatic list but Mongoose's has persistent editing and presentation problems. Combined with their slightly higher prices often it is not worth buying despite being the latest incarnation of traveller. As far as I am concerned SJ Game sets the gold standard in editing their products.

Having all my stuff organizing means I can go through my older notes and get them into the computer for backup. By having them both on paper and computer I have a better chance of preserving them for the next 30 years. This is why you been seeing the Traveller stuff here.

Of course the moment I wanted something specific, namely the actual house rules I used to award XP when I ran AD&D I can't find it. :(. I saw during the reorganization but it was in a spot with a bunch of other papers that wasn't related to AD&D.

When I was DMing AD&D I had a 3 inch white binder filled with house rules, aides, and campaign logs. At some point I disassembled it and scattered the pieces. I already knew I did this prior the reorganization and I still kick myself for doing it. It represented a great source of memories and I had it was damn useful. The 12 pages of house rules and addenum are gone except for two pages. Some cleric rules and the AD&D XP rules that I can't find now.

I had a similar binder for GURPS 3rd Edition and that been preserved. Instead of breaking it up when I moved to GURPS 4th, I created another one for 4th edition and photocopied anything I wanted out of the older one.

Also all three of my GM Binders have more than just system material. They have material from other system that I found that works well with the games I run. For example I used the Harnmaster Treasure Tables in my GURPS games as well as the list of Herbs. My AD&D binder had Judges Guild Ready ref sheets three hole punched in them.

When I get my first project done, one of the things I will be doing is applying my post about creating Traveller Sandboxes. As much as I like the Third Imperium part of Traveller's genius was adaptability to create nearly any sci-fi setting. I want to explore this side of Traveller in a form similar to Points of Light but using the principles I wrote about in the Traveller Sandbox Post. This will be likely be the third project I will be doing.

The second? After I make the announcement about the first project I will explain what that will be. They are related.

Those who do and the Old School Renaissance

Several years ago I created and developed through several version add-ons for the Orbiter Space Simulator. I specialized in recreating historical spacecraft so accurate you can use the original flight plans and toggle every switch.

The Orbiter Space Simulator community attracted a diverse crowd of fans and developers. Orbiter attracted space fans like a magnet because unlike just about every space simulator out there it is highly customizable.

Every so often flames wars would erupt among the participants in the various Orbiter forums. There were numerous reasons why most of them unimportant in retrospect. Those whose views shaped the community in the long run are those who DO. Not talk but DO by creating add-ons.

From about 2002 to 2005 my voice was a powerful influence in Orbiter Community. Because I released a half-dozen addons and consistently updated them. Today my opinion may be read but it doesn't carry as much weight. Why? Because since 2006 there are those in the Orbiter Community that DO far more than I in the past 3 years.

And you know what? It is OK. Various things happened that to cause my hobby time to shift away from Orbiter development, mostly because now I am writing stuff for you guys.

What does any of this has to do with the Old School Renaissance?

Simply if you want to shape the OSR you can't just write about it you have to DO. You have to make stuff for people to use. The experience of Orbiter taught me that those do the work shape the community far more than those who just talk about the community.

This is not a criticism of those who like to talk about the community. Many do it very well. Like James Maliszewski of Grognardia. or Jeff Rients of Jeff's Gameblog. As people it is natural we like to talk about what we do with others who share our interests. It also important because for those of us that DO it gives us feedback.

If you are a fan and feeling frustrated of not being heard then the best course is to make the product you want. Whether it is commerical or not, write it up and get it out there. Don't be concerned about what is the current fad or orthodoxy. Write it the way you want it written and make it your best work.

The definition of the Old School Renaissance will be created by those who DO.

From the Attic: Wargames

If you want to understand the roots of our hobby you have to understand wargames. In the 70s just before D&D exploded in popularity and became a fad, the hobby was dominated by wargamers crossing over.

This is a excellent history written by one of the principles behind SPI an old wargame company.

http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/Contents.htm

I was probably part of the last generation of young gamers to start out with wargames exclusively. Note that I live (and still live) in a small town in a rural area of NW Pennsylvania. We were big enough to support speciality stores. We were enough out of the way that we lagged a couple of years behind as far as general avalibility of games. I remember everybody my age or older starting out on wargames. (circa 1978) However younger gamers invariably started out on D&D. I put the tipping point about 80-81.

More Old School Skills; the Claws of Kalis

A few of the classes that I will be including in my project are heavily tied to the Majestic Wilderlands. One of them is the Claws of Kalis. In real history the assassin wasn't a general profession like a thief but rather a specific organization located in the Middle East. It existed around the time of the Crusade and was led by the Old Man of the Mountain. Greatly feared by the crusader their name entered our language as THE term for anybody involving in trying to murder for political or ideological reasons. It even became a verb.

While I can see assassins existing in a D&D world I never liked the Assassin Guild. Too generic for my taste. In my games the "Assassin Guild" became a cult of the goddess Kalis.

Kalis
Kalis is the goddess of murder, hatred, and revenge. Her goals directly conflict with those of the goddess Dannu. She revels in death and destruction. She is also known as the Blood Goddess and the Night Hag. The Claws of Kalis are among the most feared killers in the Majestic Wilderlands. Kalis is also served by her Blood Children, the Vampires and Werewolves. She has a special relationship with the god Hamakhis. Unique among the gods, she has no organized religions in the Wilderlands. She primarily worshiped by secretive cults, most of them lead by one of her Blood Children.

The Claws of Kalis.
Rogues may choose to start as members of the Claws of Kalis. The Claws are a cult of the blood goddess Kalis and dedicated to the eradication of Chaos by any means. Their favored method involves the insertion of spies into a suspect organization and then assassinating the guilty. Claws of Kalis may not be chaotic in alignment. They must possess a Dexterity of 12+. Their cult is illegal in nearly every culture, its members subject to the death penalty.

• Prime Attribute: Dexterity 15+, +15% experience.
• Gains 1d6 HP/level
• Fights using the Cleric combat table.
• Can use leather armor and shield
• Can use the following weapons: hand axe, club, dagger, light mace, staff, short sword, light crossbow, dart, sling, and short bow.
• At first level a Claw gains the following skills at skill level 1: Athletics, Climbing, Eavesdrop, Intimidate, Legerdemain, Perceive, and Stealth.
• At first level a Claw may distribute a total of twelve levels to the above skills. No more than five levels may be placed on a single skill. The remaining levels need to be split between different skills.
• At first level a Claw may add +1D6 to any hit made while attacking a surprised opponent.
• For every 4 levels the Claws gains 1 skill level in all his skills. In addition he gains 1 additional level that he may add to one skill.
• For every 3 levels a Claw may add an additional +1D6 to his surprise strike.
• At 9th level a Claw may opt to form his own cult and attract loyal followers.

The Claws have no formal hierarchy. One's standing in the Claws is based on training and experience. The Claws follow those who produce results.

In most cases a Claw has been a member since birth. New members are gained by Claws venturing out and kidnapping babies and young children. They will then bring them up as their own. Throughout childhood and youth, they are taught to obey Kalis without question. Both female and male children receive the same instruction and given the same opportunities.

From adulthood on the Claw’s life is taken up with living a cover identity, training, and undertaking missions. Typically a mission is done by a single member of the Claw. Group operations are extremely rare. Most of the Claw's killings come from paid assassinations.

It is known that in certain taverns that dropping a hint on a possible mission will bring a Claw member visiting. He will state the terms for the killing. No haggling or bargaining is allowed. If the person doesn’t accept the Claws terms, the person will marked to be used for a sacrifice to Kalis. It is common knowledge that it is not wise to call upon the Claws of Kalis unless you are prepared to pay their terms.

Climbing (Higher DEX or STR)
This skill is useful for difficult climbing tasks.

A successful roll will allow a character to climb with a rope or a steep incline.
A successful roll at a -4 modifier will allow a character to climb a sheer face.
If the character is encumbered then he is at -2 to his task roll.

Climbing with a rope is at 12 feet per round
Climbing a steep incline is at 8 feet per round
Climbing a sheer face is at 6 feet per round.

Intimidation (CHA)
This represents influencing a person through hostile action.

A successful roll will cause the target to fear the character and become cooperative.

In group situations the character may force a morale check by a successful roll. The character is -1 for every 3 people in the group he is trying to intimidate. Multiple characters with intimidation can work together to reduce this modifier. Divide the group equally between each character and calculate the modifier accordingly.

A successful roll will allow a character to force the answer to one question after an interrogation. However subtract the prisoner’s wisdom from the roll.

=======================

Note that the Intimidation skill could be abused to allow roll-play but the intent that the player roleplays his speech, interrogation, etc and then make the roll as the moment of truth.

I also tried to write the skill chapter so that it useful to DM who don't use skills. They offer guidelines to handle various situations. Rather than just posulate a universal mechanic like Castles & Crusades or other system do I try to get into specifics whenever I can.

Also note that the Climbing rule is adapted from Judges Guild's Dungeon Tac Cards. There is a series of action cards that have various rules that work well with the spirit of OD&D.

The Imperium's Incorporation

Long before Traveller 4 and it Year Zero Mileau was published. I decided to define how the Third Imperium worked in my game. Based on the few canonical hints I came up with the Articles of the Incorporation of the Third Imperium.

You can download them here.

Years later when I read through the Mileau Zero stuff I was pleased at how close I hit the mark. The big difference is that I was influenced by H Beam Piper vision of Empire and had the clause that all Nuclear Weapons are to be surrendered to the Imperium.