Quote from: Garnfellow;618368It's not hard to run a 3e game that strongly emulates the old school if you keep it to just the core. But it's almost impossible if you open up the splatbook floodgates.

Yes, this has been my experience with 3.x D&D.

Quote from: Imp;618383I like thief-acrobats...

While I wouldn't say that I *like* thief-acrobats, exactly, I think it might work fine in an urban-focused campaign.

Essential? I'm kind of in the "no such thing" boat.  
Did I use it? Sure.  
Would I again? Sure.  
Would I think of playing or running a game without it? Sure.

Optional and on a case by case basis. I do like the new spells, by and large. The magic items are largely annoying. The classes are a mixed bag.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;618418While I wouldn't say that I *like* thief-acrobats, exactly, I think it might work fine in an urban-focused campaign.

Except that they're absurdly underpowered, as in you have to be, like, 20th level to do a bunch of stuff that people IRL (and I'm not just talking Olympic-level gymnasts who, it could be argued, are equivalent to 20th level AD&D characters (even though they're all 16 years old), but rather reasonably athletic people with a reasonable amount of training - so in AD&D terms no more than about 3rd or 4th level) can do routinely. Drastically rework their skill-chart (bumping everything 5 levels - so that the first row of the chart labeled 6th level becomes 1st - is a good start, but probably isn't going nearly far enough) and ideally give them some more spectacular quasi-magical superpowers at higher level - ability to climb on ceilings, catch missiles and throw them back as an attack, fall unlimited distances without damage, walk on water, etc. - and you're looking at a more reasonable class.

Maybe, but, regular thieves don't get to be monks, either (barring magical items which the thief-acrobat would have about as much access to as the thief) - I mean, there's certainly a logic to giving non-magical classes quasi-magical heroic abilities, but you'd probably want to do it with fighters and regular thieves and also maybe rangers and paladins a bit (more) too. I'll buy that they could use a skill boost though.

Good point. Quasi-magical abilities at high level would both be too much of a conceptual break with the non-magical thief class and blur the distinction between this class and the monk (not that there's a whole lot of distinction to start with - I doubt many folks would've batted an eye had all of the acrobat abilities just been given to the monk class as extras - perhaps give tightrope walking and jumping to thieves and monks, tumbling and pole-vaulting just to monks).

I blame UA  for the scourge of the Stoneskin spell and ridiculous events like telling the Barbarian "Hey! Look over there!" so the magic-user could cast a spell. :eek:

I loved UA. We used it a lot in our 1e campaigns.

I stopped playing AD&D before UA came out. I scrounged up copies of the original 3 books a few years ago, but, not knowing what I missed, I've never felt like picking up UA.

The idea of unarmed combat rules which actually work is attractive, though.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;618466I blame UA  for the scourge of the Stoneskin spell and ridiculous events like telling the Barbarian "Hey! Look over there!" so the magic-user could cast a spell. :eek:

Won't argue with the former, but the latter doesn't seem any different/worse to me than telling the paladin "hey! look over there!" so the thief could do something non-lawful good, which was common practice long before UA was published. In both cases the disconnect comes from the assumed campaign-structure under which the books were written (that there would be a dozen or more players in the campaign, most players would have a stable of several characters, and the makeup of adventuring groups would vary widely from session to session depending on who showed up - if none of the other players there that night has a cleric you pull out your cleric character, if one of the players has a paladin he wants to play everyone else agrees to use one of their good-aligned characters, if one of the players has a barbarian either everyone agrees not to use a spell-caster or that player agrees not to use his barbarian (and maybe tries to set up a separate one-on-one session with the DM where he can use that character)) not being the way the vast majority of folks actually played, so almost everybody ended up just glossing over all those character type X won't associate with character type Y rules (and then complaining that character type X was overpowered - he wouldn't seem that way if he was forced to adventure by himself or was perpetually low-level because he almost never gets used because the other players don't want to set aside their character type Ys for his sake).

UA came along when we were screaming for more options for PCs, and it scratched some of that itch.  The additional spells are certainly a good deal, and now that I've played later editions of the game, PHB-only 1e would feel claustrophobic.

My "then" perspective: another AD&D rulebook?  Okay.  (I was 13 or 14; too young to understand issues with balance, etc.)

My "now" perspective: use with discretion, and not all of it.  Some spells, some magic-items, yes on the slight to moderate increase in demi-human levels, yes to Cavaliers but no to Paladins being a subtype of cavalier, no to thief/acrobats, no to barbarians, no to drow PCs (but yes to Wild elves), yes to the other demi-human types.

Knowing what I know now about the book's history colors my opinion of it in the overall, but it had to be done (to save TSR and thus D&D).

Quote from: thedungeondelver;618485Knowing what I know now about the book's history colors my opinion of it in the overall, but it had to be done (to save TSR and thus D&D).

I think I know what you are talking about, but would mind expanding on this a bit?  

I think it's interesting and it would be appreciated.

Quote from: Drohem;618500I think I know what you are talking about, but would mind expanding on this a bit?  

I think it's interesting and it would be appreciated.

This is my understanding, and it's based on what Gary told me:

Once the Blumes had managerial control of TSR, they created D&D Entertainment, Inc., put Gary in charge of it (per him, to get him out of the way of making day-to-day decisions about TSR operations) and shuttled him off to California to market D&D which he did an admirable job of.  He launched the D&D cartoon, and was working on the second season and negotiations for a filmed D&D movie produced by Edgar Gross, directed by John Boorman and starring Orson Welles (who was, according to Gary, impressed enough by the source material to insist it be a cinematic release, not a TV movie as Gary had first envisioned).

When things were coming to a head with those two (and other) projects, word got back to Gary that things had gone pear-shaped in Lake Geneva.  The Blumes were shopping TSR out on Wall Street and fortunes were dire.  Gary packed up and came back to LG, which unfortunately meant that the D&D movie project and D&D cartoon and other things died on the vine.

After reviewing TSR's finances he found out that there were 200 more employees than the company needed, tons of un-opened and not installed systems furniture*, and that the company had a pre-tax profit of $4 and $25m in unsecured debt; he did some legal financial maneuvering to get control of TSR again and to right financial matters, he quickly put together Unearthed Arcana.  He had to basically beg Random House to print the book, guaranteeing them big sales.

The book came at exactly the right time: years of buildup of various articles and notional things that he'd written about (A)D&D had players wondering if classes from modules, from Dragon, and the Gord books were or could be legal in AD&D.  He handpicked the best of that stuff and polished it and put it in the first new AD&D rulebook in five years.  People ate it up and the next year's pre-tax profit was $16m.  Of course a lot of this is owed to him firing the 200 extraneous employees, doing away with the needlepoint company the Blumes had purchased, and selling off the fleet of 300 cars they'd bought.  Random House's bill got paid, and the rest is history.

Gary's reward was for ... well, we know what happened a couple of years after that.

My opinion:

The book came at exactly the right time and was pitched in exactly the right way.  AD&D wasn't a role-playing game despite tons of competitors by '83, it was the role-playing game.  There was a LOT of pent-up desire for a new rulebook and more "stuff" in a codified volume.  By saying in the intro that it was not "optional" now but that everything in the book was a "rule-as-written" to be used in campaigns and by including things for players and Dungeon Masters, the book was able to double dip.  To wit: eight players in a game might not have a need of a monster manual each, and they've had the basically unchanged Players Handbook since 1978, but now, here comes Unearthed Arcana.  Players want a crack at playing a Drow PC, or a cavalier, or a barbarian, or having Stoneskin or Evard's Black Tentacles in their spell arsenal.   Now they have it!  And the DM needs to keep track of these changes and all the stuff for himself as well - and now he has that, too.  So your eight players all buy a volume: it's billed as being as essential as a Dungeon Masters Guide and a Players Handbook.

That was catching lightning in a bottle, and it created the model for RPG games for decades to come (for good or ill).


...

*=what the hell is "systems furniture" anyway?