Those look like BC-type mountains.

Quote from: CavScout;283669The good ol' "but you can house rule it" so you really don't need it....

No, seriously, Outdoor Survival and Chainmail were completely unnecessary.

The only think OD&D took from Chainmail was the combat system, and the OD&D books presented an "Alternative Combat System" you could use without referring to Chainmail at all. That alternative system is, of course, the old D&D combat system we know and love. According to Gary, he never used the "official" combat system anyway.

Literally the only thing the game took from Outdoor Survival was a wilderness map. Anyone who can't handle drawing a wilderness map themselves has no place GMing OD&D.

Like I said, the good ol' "but you can house rule it" so you really don't need it.

Quote from: Warthur;283704No, seriously, Outdoor Survival and Chainmail were completely unnecessary.

Literally the only thing the game took from Outdoor Survival was a wilderness map. Anyone who can't handle drawing a wilderness map themselves has no place GMing OD&D.

Anyone who thinks Outdoor Survival was necessary to begin with has no standing to talk about OD&D or any RPG published prior to 2005.  

Quote from: CavScout;283732Like I said, the good ol' "but you can house rule it" so you really don't need it.

Err, no.  

If you used the alternative combat system printed in the rules in Men & Magic, you did not need Chainmail because the alternative combat system did not use Chainmail mechanics. No house rules needed. The players and GM just decided which of the two alternative combat systems presented in the book they wanted to use.

Use of the Outdoor Survival was optional as well. Underworld & Wilderness Adventures presented using the Outdoor Survival map as a quick way to handle ad-hoc wilderness adventuring without the GM having to first prepare a wilderness map. Note the GM preparing one was mentioned first then using the Outdoor Survival map was presented as an alternative. As both were in the rules, no house-ruling was needed to not use the Outdoor Survival map.

However, I must point out that the entire intent of OD&D was that the GM create whatever house rules he wanted/needed -- it says as much in several places in the OD&D books and supplements. If you aren't using house rules in OD&D you really are not playing the way the designers intended. This may be alien to those used to later editions of D&D which seem to get progressively more "use the rules as written," but that does not change the fact that GMs making spot rulings and house rules for OD&D was an intentional part of the OD&D game design.

Quote from: StormBringer;283733Anyone who thinks Outdoor Survival was necessary to begin with has no standing to talk about OD&D or any RPG published prior to 2005.  

It was "necessary" in the sense that minis are "necessary" in 4E. You can houserule and not use it, but it was intended part of the game when released.

Quote from: RandallS;283735Err, no.  

If you used the alternative combat system printed in the rules in Men & Magic, you did not need Chainmail because the alternative combat system did not use Chainmail mechanics. No house rules needed. The players and GM just decided which of the two alternative combat systems presented in the book they wanted to use.

Use of the Outdoor Survival was optional as well. Underworld & Wilderness Adventures presented using the Outdoor Survival map as a quick way to handle ad-hoc wilderness adventuring without the GM having to first prepare a wilderness map. Note the GM preparing one was mentioned first then using the Outdoor Survival map was presented as an alternative. As both were in the rules, no house-ruling was needed to not use the Outdoor Survival map.

However, I must point out that the entire intent of OD&D was that the GM create whatever house rules he wanted/needed -- it says as much in several places in the OD&D books and supplements. If you aren't using house rules in OD&D you really are not playing the way the designers intended. This may be alien to those used to later editions of D&D which seem to get progressively more "use the rules as written," but that does not change the fact that GMs making spot rulings and house rules for OD&D was an intentional part of the OD&D game design.

So not only the good ol' "but you can house rule it" so you really don't need it but also add on "if you weren't house ruling you were playing it wrong!"

So, remember, folks, a one-line throw away suggestion has the same weight of 'requirement' as page after page of power listings with all manner of movement-related effects and positional pre-requisites for use.

Quote from: CavScout;283744It was "necessary" in the sense that minis are "necessary" in 4E. You can houserule and not use it, but it was intended part of the game when released.

You're joking, right? :confused:

Quote from: Stuart;283663When the oldschool gamers talk about D&D and the fun they're having with it -- it makes me want to play the game. I just haven't seen anything like that from anyone jazzed about the newest version. Where is the 4e version of Jrients?

Somewhere where they discuss 4e as something other than the downfall of man, I presume.

Quote from: counterspin;283755Somewhere where they discuss 4e as something other than the downfall of man, I presume.

In other words, everywhere.

Yeah... so CavScout is just joking/trolling... or a couple people are confused about how serious any of these discussions really are.

I can't see any discussion of this nature as being too serious, but that said even I know that 4e is heavily designed around miniature use. I hate when folks call it a miniatures skirmish game, because although it is that, that's not all it is. On the other hand, saying it would be easy to dispense with miniatures is just as silly and misleading. It makes perfect sense to me that WotC tied miniature play to the rpg rules, it's pure economics, and it can be fun if one lets go of one's prejudice and preconceptions and just rolls with it. All that said, and with the qualification that I can enjoy playing 4e, theres still several games I'd rather be playing. Hell it might be more fun if we were to drop the rpg bits and play it as a mini-skirmish game only. I would not even consider going the other way though. I thought when I first started with it that it would be easier, but AP has convinced me that it would be a pain in the sphincter to try and remove miniature use from 4e. Can it be done? Yes, but it can't realistically be compared to houseruling/improvising older versions of DnD, it's apples and oranges. It would require an amount of book-keeping and rules mods that would be impractical at best, and would make simply using a different set of rules (like 3.x or especially True20) the more attractive option.

There are plenty of points about 4e one could praise it on if one were attracted to the superheroic fantasy style that it's designed for, but the ease of removing the miniatures aspect isn't one of them. I could, however, see the rules as a great way to change up the flavor and play some over-the-top kung-fu style fantasy, some Iron Monkey/Jade Empire action. Every time I look at the rules I see each class as some "style" of magically enhanced martial "schools". Maybe bring that flavor to a European based fantasy for some kind of crazy mash-up. I could be wrong but it seems to me it'd be good at that, and the miniature aspect would be perfect for that as well.

Quote from: Stuart;283663When the oldschool gamers talk about D&D and the fun they're having with it -- it makes me want to play the game. I just haven't seen anything like that from anyone jazzed about the newest version. Where is the 4e version of Jrients?

Jrients aside, a good solid percentage of the "olde school movement" is people who talk about gaming because they don't actually do it anymore. And even so--  a good solid chunk of those people spend a sizable portion of their time (and blogs) talking about 4e, and insulting people who do enjoy it, because they realize in some fashion, that they no longer matter. In many cases (let's take StormBringer here) we're talking about people who haven't sat at a gaming table with other human beings in decades.

Oh what's this? a blog about "ye olden roleplaying? Lets check it out.. 40 posts labeled 4e? Whoa! hey isn't that more stuff he's written about the horrors of 4e then in his in-depth analysis on the use of pronouns between the Mentzer and Holmes editions???" Oh here's something new from "ye olden grognard".. I see he has found the campaign guidelines for Living Realms and completely mistaken them for actual D&D4e rules? (No really, I did find this- and the guy was taking issue with such things as "Characters in this campaign start at level 1". )

I'm shocked! Tyranny of fun!

Listen. Speaking as someone who has been playing AD&D since 1978, some of you guys are total fakes and it shows. And at the end of the day it doesn't even matter. We don't care what edition of the game you guys play at all, because we're kinda busy being part of the hobby rather than commenting on it.  Come on up to the Sagamore Ballroom at GenCon this year, you'll see. And if you really enjoy what you are doing and it isn't all about a social display of how you "no longer fit into this hobby, boo hoo" (which is what it looks like from outside the echo-chamber), then you wouldn't spend so much time talking about us either. We understand that, completely.
 
But keep it up! Snarf snarf dungeon furnace! snarf snarf! Hopefully that feels good, in some weird way.

PS just to Sigmund: I like miniatures and I wouldn't remove them from D&D3e or 4e. Or any version of SPI's Dragonquest, for that matter. So that's not a claim anyone will see me make.

That was a slo-pitch for you to write a post about how much fun 4e is Abyssal Maw.  How much fun your group is having, how the new rules mean you have more fun because of how great the minis and battlemaps are or whatever...

Edit: The closest I've seen you get is tell us how many players there are in Living 4e Campaigns and how you always have a group to play with.  That's hardly the same thing.