And once you add the rules for Surprise on pgs. 61-62 to the stew...

I don't find it all that hard to understand.  (It does help if you bold the headers and space the paragraphs - formatting makes a difference.) But someone going back and looking at excerpts of the 1E DMG who already have a lot of modern RPG experience aren't perhaps fully cognizant of what all they already know.  That excerpt from the initiative rules was meandering perhaps, but it was an explanatory meandering; talking to someone who wouldn't have much background knowledge.  That's the voice and style I was used to adults using with me when I was learning something from them - advance, pause, talk about some corner cases to clarify the "why", and advance again.

Example:

QuoteThe higher of the two rolls is said to possess the Initiative for that melee round.  (While it is not accurate to roll one die for all individuals comprising each party, it is a convenient and necessary expedient. Separate rolls could be made for each member of two small groups, for instance, but what happens to this simple, brief determination if one party consists of 9 characters and 6 henchmen and the other of 7 giants and 19 dire wolves, let us say?)

The sentence in bold is completely unnecessary from a purely expedient POV.  And perhaps if it were separated out into another section all its own under a header labled "Is rolling individual initiative a good idea" it would have been clearer for some people.  But I don't lose the bead reading through it, and I really enjoy the conversational writing style of 1E AD&D.  Others don't - I know it's a common complaint - but works with more clarity and less personality don't hold my attention like the 1E DMG does.

Yeah I wish I could clean up the formatting, I'll just add the page numbers instead. I don't recall the modules being written in this rambling, parentheses ridden, often grammatically garbled manner.

For instance:

"In such circumstances the non-surprised (or less-surprised) party has an immediate advantage which is reflected in the granting of 1 or more segments of initiative, during which the active (non-or less surprised) party can take actions 4. A. through H., wholly or partially depending on several modifying factors."

The parentheses are redundant and actually cloud instead of clarify the statement.

It's odd as many other sections are well written.

In any case, that's a style preference.  I'm not going to base what game I play on what I think of a writer's style. In terms of priorities it's way, way below what happens at the table.  It doesn't even register.

As far as the 1E/2E thing, it's interesting.  You mentioned "narcissism of small differences".  Now, you don't play 2E as far as I can tell, so I don't think you'll take personally my using your statement in an example.

If you go up to a group of 2E enthusiasts, say at a con, or a 2E-specific forum, in such a manner that they don't already know you're a 1E enthusiast, and begin a conversation about all the way that 2E is different and better than 1E, they will be able to provide a lot of details.  The conversation can go on for hours, or dozens of forum posts, where they will talk about all the improvements great and small that 2E made over 1E, and how said improvements greatly changed play for the better.  If you ask them if they are indifferent to playing in a 2E or 1E game, most will say no - that the improvements that 2E made were significant, and they wouldn't want to go back to a straight 1E game.  Some don't really care, but they are a minority.

However if you present yourself as a 1E enthusiast who feels that 2E and 1E are very different games, all these differences suddenly go away, and 2E is just 1E better organized.  They will argue against there being any significant differences at all.

It seems that the differences between 1E and 2E are as if seen through a spyglass - whether they are huge or tiny depends on what end is picked up at the beginning.

Well there's no doubt the core mechanics of 1e are solid. Just always mystified that the core books are so unevenly written.

For the kind of "Palaces & Princesses" feel 2e was going for, I kinda think they would have been better off dropping monster & gold XP both and go for some kind of abstract Quest Award type XP system where you get say 1/10 of a typical level's advancement per significant achievement, or around 1/5 of a level per play session. At least as an option. They'd have needed a 9 or 10 level table of awards for achievements, much like the Monster Level I-X system, but I think it could have worked well for that edition. Something like:

Quest Award   XP
I                250
II               500
III            1000
IV            2000
V             4000
VII           8000
VIII        12000
IX          16000
X           20000

Quote from: EOTB;968966In any case, that's a style preference.  I'm not going to base what game I play on what I think of a writer's style. In terms of priorities it's way, way below what happens at the table.  It doesn't even register.

As far as the 1E/2E thing, it's interesting.  You mentioned "narcissism of small differences".  Now, you don't play 2E as far as I can tell, so I don't think you'll take personally my using your statement in an example.

If you go up to a group of 2E enthusiasts, say at a con, or a 2E-specific forum, in such a manner that they don't already know you're a 1E enthusiast, and begin a conversation about all the way that 2E is different and better than 1E, they will be able to provide a lot of details.  The conversation can go on for hours, or dozens of forum posts, where they will talk about all the improvements great and small that 2E made over 1E, and how said improvements greatly changed play for the better.  If you ask them if they are indifferent to playing in a 2E or 1E game, most will say no - that the improvements that 2E made were significant, and they wouldn't want to go back to a straight 1E game.  Some don't really care, but they are a minority.

However if you present yourself as a 1E enthusiast who feels that 2E and 1E are very different games, all these differences suddenly go away, and 2E is just 1E better organized.  They will argue against there being any significant differences at all.

It seems that the differences between 1E and 2E are as if seen through a spyglass - whether they are huge or tiny depends on what end is picked up at the beginning.

You see the same thing with discussing narrative mechanics.  On forums where those types of games are predominant, there's no question at all that these games contain completely different types of mechanics, that provide a completely different experience from games that don't have them.  After all the focus of the board is discussing those types of gamesand mechanics, why they are different, how, and how they can be better.  System matters.

Over here though...there's no difference at all.

I'll chime in here to note that it is possible to appreciate and benefit from the OSR movement even if one is not directly running an OSR game.  5E is probably the closest mechanical base to what I want in D&D (usually, it varies).  But I predominately ran AD&D 1E and BECMI/RC in the past.  The way I run 5E is not exactly by the book, but someone familiar with 1E and RC could clearly see the source of most of my changes.  My house ruled initiative, for example, is basically the RC rolling for each side, with a few tweaks to fit 5E for a larger group of players.  

More than mechanics, though, is the GM mindset.  WotC did a mostly good job for players quickly, and has gotten slowly, grudgingly better at writing GM advice, but they still haven't captured the glorious, lightning in a bottle, mess that is the overall impression from earlier, especially 1E.  It's almost as if they need a disclaimer in the front of the 5E DMG that says something like:  "After you run a few sessions and get some your feet wet, here are some other games we think you should try.  After you run those a few times, go back to 5E and apply the lessons learned."

Quote from: EOTB;968966It seems that the differences between 1E and 2E are as if seen through a spyglass - whether they are huge or tiny depends on what end is picked up at the beginning.

That my observation as well. My conclusion for the moment is there are two components that one could talk about.

One is fairly objective in that it ask "How much work does it take me to use a work written for X system for Y system."

The other is highly subjective and ask "How does this feel like my favorite system and the constellation of supplements around it?"

My experience for #1 the difference between 1E and 2E is trivial unless you bring Skill and Power into the mix. Even then the vast majority of the PUBLISHED 2e works did not use Skills and Powers so that is a non-issue. But might be of importance for somebody wanting to use their home-brew material.

For me this is driven home by the nearly 20 years I spend adapting material for my GURPS Fantasy campaign and the past decade of using OD&D as the foundation for my campaign. Compared to converting Tomb of Horrors to GURPS converting Tomb of Horrors to OD&D was trival.


My experience with #2 is that when it comes to personal preferences the differences between 1E and 2E can be of huge importance.

So when somebody goes X is better than Y, is it because X takes them less time and work to run the kind of campaign they want? Or it is because as a form of entertainment X is just more appealing?

Quote from: CRKrueger;969025You see the same thing with discussing narrative mechanics.  On forums where those types of games are predominant, there's no question at all that these games contain completely different types of mechanics, that provide a completely different experience from games that don't have them.  After all the focus of the board is discussing those types of gamesand mechanics, why they are different, how, and how they can be better.  System matters.

I was astounded over the amount of rules lawyering that goes on these forums. They are like and unlike the optimization threads that 3e and Pathfinder forum invariably have. Like in that they focus on the nuts and bolts of obsessively manipulating mechanics to achieve a desired outcome. Unlike that for 3e/Pathfinder it is about making badass characters to kick monsters asses and take their treasure, while in storygames forums it is about making badass narratives where the characters shine like Twilight Vampires.

Quote from: estar;969043That my observation as well. My conclusion for the moment is there are two components that one could talk about.

One is fairly objective in that it ask "How much work does it take me to use a work written for X system for Y system."

The other is highly subjective and ask "How does this feel like my favorite system and the constellation of supplements around it?"

My experience for #1 the difference between 1E and 2E is trivial unless you bring Skill and Power into the mix. Even then the vast majority of the PUBLISHED 2e works did not use Skills and Powers so that is a non-issue. But might be of importance for somebody wanting to use their home-brew material.

For me this is driven home by the nearly 20 years I spend adapting material for my GURPS Fantasy campaign and the past decades of using OD&D as the foundation for my campaign. Compared to converting Tomb of Horrors to GURPS converting Tomb of Horrors to OD&D was trival.


My experience with #2 is that when it comes to personal preferences the differences between 1E and 2E can be of huge importance.

So when somebody goes X is better than Y, is it because X talk them less time and work to run the kind of campaign they want? Or it is because as a form of entertainment X is just more appealing?

For me the experience of the game (mood, what style of play the mechanics support, etc.) is what is most important. The #1, well, I ran a long Gloranthan RuneQuest campaign frequently borrowing D&D modules, sometimes for not much more than the map. So yea, my collection of modules is useful in almost any game (I really should pick a D&D module other than the Thieve's World boxed set to drop into my Traveller campaign just to see what happens... Oh, and don't worry, I'll probably drop Thieve's World in also, after all, it already has a Traveller conversion section...).

So from that perspective, yea, I consider 2e to be a different game than 1e, though honestly, my biggest reaction to it was "why should I start over purchasing books when I just recently purchased the Dungeon and Wilderness Survival Guides for 1e? Though certainly the elimination of the Assasin and playing evil PCs also played in. Plus I was getting turned off from D&D at the time 2e came out. I've got a smattering of 2e material, but never bought any core books (I picked up some of the race and class books, and a number of modules).

Frank

Quote from: estar;969043That my observation as well. My conclusion for the moment is there are two components that one could talk about.

One is fairly objective in that it ask "How much work does it take me to use a work written for X system for Y system."

The other is highly subjective and ask "How does this feel like my favorite system and the constellation of supplements around it?"

My experience for #1 the difference between 1E and 2E is trivial unless you bring Skill and Power into the mix. Even then the vast majority of the PUBLISHED 2e works did not use Skills and Powers so that is a non-issue. But might be of importance for somebody wanting to use their home-brew material.

For me this is driven home by the nearly 20 years I spend adapting material for my GURPS Fantasy campaign and the past decades of using OD&D as the foundation for my campaign. Compared to converting Tomb of Horrors to GURPS converting Tomb of Horrors to OD&D was trival.


My experience with #2 is that when it comes to personal preferences the differences between 1E and 2E can be of huge importance.

So when somebody goes X is better than Y, is it because X talk them less time and work to run the kind of campaign they want? Or it is because as a form of entertainment X is just more appealing?

These are good points, because I agree I could run just about any 2E adventure using 1E without a thought (thus bypassing all of my issues with how the rules effect tactics and strategy), and yet I can only think of 2 or 3 that I would care to.  

Although I do agree that those who love that style of play and rules needed a system geared toward their profiles.  The "Role play not roll play" divide when everyone was stuck in the same tent was tiresome.  (It's still around, but much easier to ignore.)