The Ultimate Thread Necromancy - AD&D Sucks

[Shawn Driscoll]

AD&D vs RuneQuest. I was there.

[thedungeondelver]

These arguments... it's been 24 years and NOTHING HAS ESSENTIALLY CHANGED. Same arguments, said the same way.

You could post these to TBP or any other board, and no one would tell they were Oh So Ancient.

Heh.

Thirty four.

[Mordred Pendragon]

Ah Usenet, I was a small child when that was popular. By the time I actually started surfing the internet in 2003, it was closer to its current form and Usenet was largely dead. But I do love reading old preserved Usenet discussons from the 90's. Another interesting one was the White Wolf Usenet group. Google has preserved most of the threads from that particular group.

[Exploderwizard]

Dude was completely right about the unarmed combat system. It blows goats. We have proof.

Cool find.

[Bradford C. Walker]

Christ. This really is ancient. Fuck me. This is 1982. The clashes arises from a lack of shared wargaming experience and culture is already apparent.

[Settembrini]

That, and classical "RQ-cool-kids" D&D-bashing. I think back in 2006-9 we said the elitists should have stayed with Runequest.

But ole' Ron Bat-A-Wang never was allowed into them RQ-groups...

[Spinachcat]

From the archives of USENET circa 1982

You rock Estar!! Thank you!

[Ravenswing]

Kind of funny seeing him suggest Runequest.  While I am a bit younger, my group tried exactly that in the late 80s for pretty much the same reasons dude complained about way back when.  Character creation took so long we got bored, then rolled up some ADnD characters real quick and did some adventuring.  

Well ... the tide had turned by 1982, but for a couple of years there a large faction thought that RQ was going to pass D&D in popularity.  I've seen a good bit of debate down the years whether it failed to do so despite of or because of Glorantha, but I do believe that the publication of AD&D was the critical event in the chain.

[Rincewind1]

Interesting, because when I've played AD&D through OSRIC, due to the tenacious process of early equipment buying, the character generation took about as long as in RQ.

[estar]

You rock Estar!! Thank you!

some other interesting threads

The release of Unearthed Arcana.

Gygax leaving TSR

The first mention of GURPS

A windows into how one group of gamers played at college.

AD&D's most significant flaw

A review of Rolemaster

Fantasy Hero was the fantasy RPG that I switched after abandoning AD&D. This is a post about it.

With the demise of net.games.frp rec.games.frp games into being starting in 1987 then split into sub forums in mid 1991.

[thedungeondelver]

This is shitty backhanded edition warring, by the way.  At least be honest about it.

With that out of the way, screw history people's opinions on AD&D, I wanna post a reply to the dude who wants to use light (the spell) as a laser beam!  Behold:

wild...@nmtvax.uucp    
11/22/85
Using a light spell as a laser

     This is a device I thought about for a possible campaign. Take some rough
crystal ( ruby, sapphire, emerald, but it has to be carmorundum , glass simply
will not do), and cut it into a cylindrical rod. Polish one end perperdicularly
and silver it. Polish the other end at about a five degree angle, and
partially silver it. Result: LASER CRYSTAL!

     To use, cast a light spell ( normally level 1 ) to originate from inside
the crystal. The crystal will concentrate the light into a cutting beam,
suitable for slicing prison bars, drilling holes into adamantine, or slicing
live dragon into dragon steaks.

Could anyone give me some suggestions for play restrictions on the use of
this device?

Now THAT is some player fuckery right there.

[Rincewind1]

This is shitty backhanded edition warring, by the way.  At least be honest about it.

With that out of the way, screw history people's opinions on AD&D, I wanna post a reply to the dude who wants to use light (the spell) as a laser beam!  Behold:



Now THAT is some player fuckery right there.

I used to work as a jeweler - no frigging way. Technological limitation - you'd not have the tools, technology and knowledge to do it within typical pseudomedieval D&D world. And I don't remember any Polish & Cut Gems (Space Engineering Level) spells. We're talking Hubble - level diamond dust sandpapering.

[golan2072]

Reminds me of the general "sophisticated gamer" scorn to D&D in 1990's Israel, i.e. "D&D is unrealistic - play Rolemaster/Shadowrun/Earthdawn/any other typical 1980's rule-heavy system" and "D&D is childish and lacks REAL roleplay - play Vampire the Masquerade/Call of Cthulhu". If you were part of the "cool kids" you expressed scorn to D&D, as did some of the columns in the (few) gaming magazines here.

It also had a lot to do with AD&D 2E and B/X going out of print in Israel as the company publishing them in Hebrew translation (Mitzuv) went bankrupt and getting things from abroad was not so easy in the 1990's.

The entire thing died down - more or less - once D&D 3E came, not to mention once it was translated into Hebrew, and then EVERYONE was playing D&D. The Internet later diversified the hobby somewhat, but still D&D is the biggest game in town.

[thedungeondelver]

I used to work as a jeweler - no frigging way. Technological limitation - you'd not have the tools, technology and knowledge to do it within typical pseudomedieval D&D world. And I don't remember any Polish & Cut Gems (Space Engineering Level) spells. We're talking Hubble - level diamond dust sandpapering.

Yeah, plus the whole "S E R" part of LASER = "stimulated emission of radiation".  In other words, even assuming he could get the pieces he thinks he needs together (a really pretty highly polished gem and a really bright light) he's missing a medium and a mode of exciting that medium.

I'd be more inclined to honor a wish for "a working laser pistol!" than I would to allow you to "invent" a laser in an AD&D game.

And I wouldn't honor a wish for a laser gun at all.

[Rincewind1]

Yeah, plus the whole "S E R" part of LASER = "stimulated emission of radiation".  In other words, even assuming he could get the pieces he thinks he needs together (a really pretty highly polished gem and a really bright light) he's missing a medium and a mode of exciting that medium.

I'd be more inclined to honor a wish for "a working laser pistol!" than I would to allow you to "invent" a laser in an AD&D game.

And I wouldn't honor a wish for a laser gun at all.

I'd not actually in the second case - in WFRP 1e, if they met one of the futuristic implements, I'd honour it if they asked a Genie for something similar as they'd describe it (or Gods of Chaos). But in a "classic" AD&D world, I don't see how a character'd learn of it, unless of course they did travel into futuristic realms - which isn't impossible by the time they can cast Wish.