Quote from: Larsdangly;746159This game saw 5 pretty extensive revisions between 1977 and 1987. All of them, plus the original, are complicated, dense rules sets with lots of moving parts (to-hit tables; saving throw tables; shifting time and distance scales; variety of dice rolling mechanics; etc.).

The details got extensive revisions, the game itself remained the same until 2e's skills and powers. The result is that settings, adventures, and supplements are relatively interchangeable from early 2e to OD&D. Orders of magnitude easier than going to Rolemaster, GURPS, Hero system, etc.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746159It is inaccurate to describe them as freeform or rules-light games.

OD&D, Moldavy/Cook B/X, and 2e core, I would characterize as freeform rules light systems. BECMI, and AD&D have more subsystems and details but they can easily be ignored in favor of the approaches taken by the other editions. In practice often were.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746159It is also inaccurate to say the intention was always for every group to have its own take on the rules — this was the default game of convention tournaments, and the main authorial statement of intent (introduction to the DMG) makes a point of telling us how important it is to have a shared set of rules.

That is a defining characteristic of AD&D only. And in practice people ignored it anyway. 2e was designed to allow for a wealth of setting, OD&D had to be interpreted.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746159Anyway, somehow, over all those editions and authors and hundreds and hundreds of pages of core rules, they never got it together to write the half page of instructions that would be needed to explain how you resolve the 5-10 most common non-combat challenges players face; e.g., climbing, jumping, hiding, sneaking, etc.

Tell me how to climb a 20 foot cliff. Seriously forget any game or system and explain to all of us how does a person climb a 20 foot cliff.

Or how does a person jump over a 5 foot gap.  

What you are failing to acknowledge is that OD&D was born of actual play. It wasn't designed it evolved in response to the crazy shit Old Geezer and his crew tried to do. Hence it only had rules when rules were needed to cover something that group did.

And this exerted a founder's effect on the subsequent editions. Once you understand its history D&D makes sense in why it is the way it is. The main failing of Gygax and TSR was not in the design of the game but that they failed to explain everything that was needed.

And in the alternate history where OD&D was presented much better, OD&D still wouldn't have rules for climbing, jumping, etc. Because the advice would have boiled down to "Use your fucking common sense.".

That what Old Geezer been trying to explain to you in his acerbic way.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746159But on some basic issues they were obstinate dopes.

I suggest you read Jon Peterson's Playing at the World because you obviously don't know shit about how D&D came about.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746173As a simple example, say I try to jump over a 10' wide gap in a ruined wall. It isn't obvious whether or not I'll make it. 1' is obvious; 100' is obvious; 10' is not. What do we do? The DM could pull something out of his ass that effectively declares the outcome, but that is unsatisfying in a game with the basic 'flow' of D&D.

Well circa 1970 Gygax and crew knew that the current world record for the running long jump was 29 feet and the current world record for a standing long jump was 12' Declared that what a 18 strength person could jump and scale it down from there. Say 10 strength is half of both values rounded to 15 feet and 6 feet.

Realizing that given time and consideration, failure become statistical noise. So only a on 1 on a d20 will you fail.

If you are in the middle of combat, then I would call for a saving throw with a bonus for shorter distances. This represents the character being able to focus enough to make the distance.The exact distance doesn't matter (other than the maximum) because the problem is being poised enough to setup for a jump in the first place.

All developed using the mechanics found in OD&D, reasonable knowledge, and common sense.

Now why didn't OD&D have an explanation or attempt to teach the reader how Gygax and Arneson did this?

That where the history of the game came into play. Gygax and Arneson wrote D&D targeting the audience they knew. The relatively close-knit circle of miniature wargamers that communicated regularly through the newsletters. They didn't write down the things they thought this group would automatically. And one of those things was a history with recreating historical battles with miniature and using third party referees to adjudicate disputes that arose during the game.

Which would have worked save for the fact that D&D exploded out of its niche into groups that didn't share the knowledge or experience of miniature wargamers.

Within a short amount time (from 1974 to 1977) Gygax figured out how to deal with this and had the Holmes basic set made as well as creating AD&D.

Alongside this OD&D was continued in the form of B/X and later BECMI.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746173if something is attempted that has some sort of significant consequence and has an uncertain outcome, then some sort of concrete rule, agreed upon before hand, is called for.

The opinion you have expressed here is far from universal.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746173The DM could pull something out of his ass that effectively declares the outcome, but that is unsatisfying in a game with the basic 'flow' of D&D. So, this sort of event calls for a rule and probably a die roll.

Again, this opinion is far from universal.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746173The turd in the basket of pre 3E D&D is that there are no rules for a half dozen really obvious things like this.

Menzter Red Box DM Booklet p. 20.  1983

...........................................................
New Rules

During the play of the game, a player will eventually try something not explained in these rules.

If a character wants to do something that could be based on an ability score, a test of that score could be used. For example, if a huge boulder blocks the corridor, and a Fighter says "I'll try to move it", this action is based on Strength.  The two ways a DM might handle this are:

1. If the Strength score or less is rolled on 1d20, the attempt succeeds. Penalties for heavier objects are decided by the DM by adding a number to the roll.

2. If the Strength score or less is rolled on 3d6, the attempt succeeds.  More or different dice are used for heavier objects (4d6, 5d4, 3d8, 5d6, and so forth).

Be sure to write down any rules you create, and apply them fairly to everyone.

These are only suggestions; you are free to make up any reasonable rules and apply them as needed.  
.........................................................


You can't get much more clear than that.

Quote from: Enlightened;746195You can't get much more clear than that.

I like that 3d6 rule, but I'd use 2d6 as the baseline. Strong characters then can't fail mundane checks, which seems reasonable to me, but they get tested by harder stuff.

(Re-theme statement as applicable for other attributes)

Quote from: Warthur;746184See, this is where your metaphor was all confused - the whole "turd among the turkeys" thing implies that something you consider awful is included in TSR-era D&D, whereas what you're actually saying is that something is absent that you think is necessary.

Given that TSR-era D&D went some 25 years before it got retired, are you absolutely sure the necessity of those rules is as "obvious" as you think it is?

The fact that ol' Lars has conflated brown box OD&D with AD&D shows he's already pretty confused.  The editorial intention of AD&D was drastically different from the editorial intention of OD&D.

I don't care about you guys and your discussion. I read the thread title, OP and then found this:



Make of it what you will. If it is of use, good.

To OP, some options you may toy around with:
Add the thief's dexterity to his skills (but add his Int to Find Traps and his Wisdom to Hear noise)

Allow the thief to use better armor at a penalty:
Scale imparts -20% to all skills
Chain armor -30%
Banded -40%
Plate -50%

Give the thief access to all weapons (like B/X did I'm not sure BECMI does)

Give Thieves improved backstab according to level a la AD&D.

If using Weapon Mastery (but I suggest you don't unless you heavily houserule most of it) allow only Fighters and Thieves to get mastery ranks above Basic.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;746300I don't care about you guys and your discussion.

That's okay, we don't care about you either, but here's a nice juicy dog turd for you to suck on.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;746300I don't care about you guys and your discussion. I read the thread title, OP and then found this:

[redacted]

Make of it what you will. If it is of use, good.

This is actually really good; thanks for that. Where did you find it?

And I agree with you about the discussion, which I abandoned a couple of pages ago!

Quote from: Larsdangly;746330And I agree with you about the discussion, which I abandoned a couple of pages ago!

Says the one who started the discussion (and posted one page ago).

Quote from: Old Geezer;746097The rules are there to make it easier for me to resolve stuff.  I could indeed simply adjudicate combat, but using rules makes it easier.

o.k., I'll bite: One last rejoinder - my argument in a nutshell, spoken out of the mouth of Old Geezer. This is perfect. Now just extend it by ~1 % so it covers all the stuff you do during the ~50 % of the time you aren't trying to hack someone's head off.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746334o.k., I'll bite: One last rejoinder - my argument in a nutshell, spoken out of the mouth of Old Geezer. This is perfect. Now just extend it by ~1 % so it covers all the stuff you do during the ~50 % of the time you aren't trying to hack someone's head off.

You didn't see THIS:

Quote from: Enlightened;746195Menzter Red Box DM Booklet p. 20.  1983

...........................................................
New Rules

During the play of the game, a player will eventually try something not explained in these rules.

If a character wants to do something that could be based on an ability score, a test of that score could be used. For example, if a huge boulder blocks the corridor, and a Fighter says "I'll try to move it", this action is based on Strength.  The two ways a DM might handle this are:

1. If the Strength score or less is rolled on 1d20, the attempt succeeds. Penalties for heavier objects are decided by the DM by adding a number to the roll.

2. If the Strength score or less is rolled on 3d6, the attempt succeeds.  More or different dice are used for heavier objects (4d6, 5d4, 3d8, 5d6, and so forth).

Be sure to write down any rules you create, and apply them fairly to everyone.

These are only suggestions; you are free to make up any reasonable rules and apply them as needed.  
.........................................................


You can't get much more clear than that.

There are a couple of options, and there are others around as well. Each playing group should choose the options that make the most sense for them.

There is no bog standard LAW that every table must follow nor should there be.

That's a good find but doesn't actually say anything broader than the AD&D strength tables. This implies a rules system for other kinds of events, in a way you might say other sub-systems in D&D do. But it isn't such a sub system. My gripe is simply that it would have taken trivial effort to tighten the whole thing up by providing a clear set of guidelines. It makes no sense to worry the game would be somehow ruined; saving throws use an elaborate sub-system with a bunch of unique tables and modifiers and address a fairly narrow set of circumstances; that didn't 'break' D&D.

Quote from: Larsdangly;746357That's a good find but doesn't actually say anything broader than the AD&D strength tables. This implies a rules system for other kinds of events, in a way you might say other sub-systems in D&D do. But it isn't such a sub system. My gripe is simply that it would have taken trivial effort to tighten the whole thing up by providing a clear set of guidelines. It makes no sense to worry the game would be somehow ruined; saving throws use an elaborate sub-system with a bunch of unique tables and modifiers and address a fairly narrow set of circumstances; that didn't 'break' D&D.

There are numerous ways to go about things. That is the beauty of a light rules system. Those who want to "tighten up" task resolution can do so quite easily.

Tighter rules can be beneficial OR they can be a giant stick up your ass.  Extra rules suggestions are simply handing you the stick without shoving it in. I much prefer the aforementioned stick an optional component than one rammed home by default.

Dave & Gary assumed players would be more comfortable without such a stick. It is kind of sad to see how many times this assumption was wrong.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;746358There are numerous ways to go about things. That is the beauty of a light rules system. Those who want to "tighten up" task resolution can do so quite easily.

Tighter rules can be beneficial OR they can be a giant stick up your ass.  Extra rules suggestions are simply handing you the stick without shoving it in. I much prefer the aforementioned stick an optional component than one rammed home by default.

Dave & Gary assumed players would be more comfortable without such a stick. It is kind of sad to see how many times this assumption was wrong.

Dave & Gary rammed an enormous number of large, pointy sticks up our asses; its just that the community mostly pulled them back out by ignoring the rules. Weapon vs. armor class tables? Weapon speed rules? Unarmed combat rules? How about those hit location rules in OD&D? I could go on.

This whole discussion is sort of like an argument about the bible between a talmudic scholar and atheistic copy editor. The talmudic scholar has infinite capacity to milk wisdom from the ambiguous words, but has to constantly engage in an orwellian double think to avoid noticing the obtuse inconsistencies in tone and content. The atheistic copy editor can come across as a soulless boor, but at least is living in reality and working toward something that makes sense.