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The Making of a 1980s Dungeons & Dragons Module

Posted by Soulskill on from the rpg-roots dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Over at Medium, Jon Peterson (author of Playing at the World) has put up a new in-depth article covering the internal process at TSR that created Dungeons & Dragons modules in the 1980s. The adventures created at that time (by the likes of Tracy Hickman, then a staff designer) paved the way for many later computer role-playing games, and this piece shows how TSR work was pitched, storyboarded, proofed, edited and organized. With the positive reception of the new 5th edition of D&D and the attention paid to the fortieth anniversary of the game, the historical record behind modern gaming gets ever more important.

59 comments

  1. How many virgins were involved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Not sacrifice, just the 40 year old kind?

    1. Re:How many virgins were involved? by alphatel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not sacrifice, just the 40 year old kind?

      Well that brings me to a fun story of how I got into D&D. I was trucked off by my parents to Florida one summer to stay with a relative for a few weeks. Lucky me there was a hobby store nearby and I had stashed a jar of quarters that had been untapped all year. After looking around for a few hours (what else was there to do in Florida when you're 14?), I found the D&D books, they were already second edition but something about them intrigued me. They were way beyond the scope of playing a video game (we're talking monochromatic consoles/handhelds back then), but they offered so much wealth in terms of creation and exploration. I made the decision to buy a kit complete with DM Guide, Monster Manual and a few starter adventures. I went to the register to inquire if my terms could be met.

      I asked the nice lady behind the counter "Can I pay with all quarters (in my New York accent which I didn't know until that day that I had one)" To which the lady replied "What are kawters?". I hadn't brought any with me, so it took me a few minutes to explain that 25% of a dollar was a coin that had a $0.25 value. When she finally got it she said "Oh you mean Kwat-ers." I came back the next day and paid with my Kwa-ters, laughing the whole way. It's one of those things you never forget, and part of it was because it was about D&D, a game that literally helped saved the bored skull of a preteen.

      In the end, I actually became friends with someone I never got along with previously, simply because we wound up at a rather raucous D&D game together. Still best friends decades later.

      --
      When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
    2. Re:How many virgins were involved? by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

      I used to buy them even though I didn't have any friends to play with. That was back when nerds like me were persona-non-grata in school and no one would have dreamed of openly admitting to being a D&D fan. I often wonder how many others there were in my school, or how much things could have been different if there had been some way for us to make contact without getting the shit kicked out of us for being such geeks.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    3. Re: How many virgins were involved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You enter the classroom only to discover that it is a dungeon with the splattered remains of Rorschach the barbarian on two opposing walls, both of which are slowly closing in on you. As you search for clues to escape, the unholy spectre of Oedipus the lich materialises, grasping an impossibly large wand and two golden orbs of power. In one of the orbs you can see the figure of your mother chastising you for poor potty performance, while in the other orb you see the figure of your father drowning kittens to punish you for masturbating. Several of the voices in your head whisper that you must smash the orb of the parent you love most to disarm the trap but in so doing you condemn that parent to eternal enslavement with the lich. Which orb do you break?

    4. Re:How many virgins were involved? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 0

      kwa-ters? kor-ters?

      Hell, I'd be happy if most DnD players could pronounce "soap".

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    5. Re:How many virgins were involved? by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      I know I spent far more time reading the manuals than playing. Especially reading monster descriptions, treasures, and equipment. I was mostly interested in D&D but probably read manuals for at least half a dozen different game types, just out of curiosity, even though I never played any of them at all.

      --
      The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
    6. Re:How many virgins were involved? by Chelloveck · · Score: 1

      Not sacrifice, just the 40 year old kind?

      I realize you're making a funny, but back when I played, back in the ancient times when 1st edition was just called AD&D because there wasn't a 2nd edition yet, we had actual girls in my campaign. With real boobs and vaginas. Which I know for a fact 'cause I got nekkid with a couple of 'em from time to time. And this at a college with a 4:1 male:female ratio, even. I'm not sure how this "nerd == virgin" idea got started, but consenting nerds have been screwing each other at least as long as I've been old enough to join the fun, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first.

      --
      Chelloveck
      I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
    7. Re: How many virgins were involved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Duh! I disbelieve the illusion and make a saving throw vs. my Intelligence. No True Father would seek to punish a son for masturbating. So it must be an illusion.

    8. Re:How many virgins were involved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I had continued playing in college, my experiences probably would have been similar to yours. However, I started playing AD&D (often retronymed as "1st Ed.") in 8th grade after playing the original (Blackmoor, etc.) a little bit in 7th grade. The popular kids weren't doing stuff like this, only the relatively brainy ones, and there was a strong correlation between "brainy" and "virgin" even through the end of high school. I suspect this was most often the case for early adopters, and the anecdotal conversations I've had bear this out. FWIW, there were girls who played, but there just wasn't much sex going on at that age, in contrast with the rate of sexual activity among the non-brainy popular kids. YMMV.

      - T

  2. I remember playing by CaptQuark · · Score: 1

    I remember playing D&D back in the 80s. For me, it was soon replaced by video games.

    ~~

    1. Re:I remember playing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nerd!

    2. Re:I remember playing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, TSR produced a lot of games. But on shoestring budget. Then came Blizzard, and the rest is history lol...

    3. Re:I remember playing by gl4ss · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...so is blizzard going to bring on their first role playing game soon or something?

      they made an ok nethack clone back in the day (18 years ago? or something) with a really neat rendered intro video but it wasn't much of a role playing game and then they made a virtual amusement park game with multiple players and rides that you needed 40 people to go through but I haven't heard of them producing a rpg yet..

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    4. Re:I remember playing by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      I remember playing D&D back in the 80s. For me, it was soon replaced by video games.

      ~~

      I remember eventually replacing the D&D books with a D&D video game (on a Commodore 64).

      Still played from the books off and on for years, though - it was amazing how many military folks played D&D back in the late '80s (at least in the USAF), and sometimes nearly the whole squadron would get together for a massive session on occasion (it got hard to play after a certain amount of alcohol, but damn it got funnier.)

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    5. Re:I remember playing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was an awful "nethack clone" with only a tiny fractions of the depth and complexity that nethack has. The same is true of their current games, too.

  3. I always thought these were "1 person" projects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Most D&D modules have 1 or 2 authors listed on the front.

    It's pretty clear after reading this, that there were many people involved throughout the entire process.

  4. Fun article. But "Quagmire"?! by Radical+Moderate · · Score: 1

    I played the Giant series of modules mentioned in the article, but never heard of Quagmire. Can't believe they couldn't come up with a better title. Still, fun to see what was going on behind the scenes at TSR.

    --
    Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
  5. It was a lot more social by msobkow · · Score: 3, Informative

    When we played, it was a far more social game than any of the electronic equivalents. A good dungeon master would let you try creative solutions for problems that weren't pre-programmed, sometimes throwing the game into entirely uncharted territory. More importantly, your team-mates were characters with personality, not just players with supporting stats.

    How often does the thief in the party actually steal from team-mates in the electronic versions? Yet our team had a thief character who would do exactly that -- swipe anything that wasn't nailed down -- and sometimes use a crowbar if it was. :)

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:It was a lot more social by msobkow · · Score: 1

      It was called "role playing" instead of "roll playing" for a reason. :)

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    2. Re:It was a lot more social by Guy+From+V · · Score: 0

      OK Mark Rein-Hagen.

    3. Re:It was a lot more social by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      well.. as often as it's scripted in.
      quite a few games have backstabbing party companions as part of the story.

      but.. were your friends playing the roles of the characters - or were they roling the character as them(which, actually, isn't the point, the point being taking the role of the character instead of making the character act like you would, which would take the story to uncharted pointless ends quite quickly).

      like, if the character has low wisdom.. well.. then he has low wisdom - same with alignments.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    4. Re:It was a lot more social by rjforster · · Score: 1

      How often does the thief in the party actually steal from team-mates in the electronic versions? Yet our team had a thief character who would do exactly that -- swipe anything that wasn't nailed down -- and sometimes use a crowbar if it was. :)

      It's those little amusing things that make RPGs so much fun. One of my groups has an ongoing joke that usually crops up in Sci-Fi games where we make strong booze on the side and get a little business going selling that despite the fall of governments or alien invasions going on.
      I remember a fantasy game where I was the only character to have a magic sword (or any magic weapon, for that matter) - yet I never once drew it. It wasn't cursed or anything like that, I just rarely got into those kinds of scrapes and it got to the stage where I was making a point of it.

    5. Re:It was a lot more social by khallow · · Score: 1, Insightful

      which, actually, isn't the point, the point being taking the role of the character instead of making the character act like you would, which would take the story to uncharted pointless ends quite quickly

      What authority decides what the point of a role playing game is again? I just want to make sure I'm playing my RPGs in the proper manner.

    6. Re:It was a lot more social by ledow · · Score: 1

      The "anything can happen" rule is both the life and death of RPG's. No, it doesn't translate to even online play necessarily.

      And it's more difficult than you might think to have a team of people playing those kinds of games WITHOUT going stupid. Your example is perfect. Exactly the kind of thing to give players a laugh, keep the DM on their toes, and not be covered by any existing rules.

      Problem is, having people to play with where it doesn't descend into what happens in friendly-fire CS:GO matches.

    7. Re:It was a lot more social by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      How often does the thief in the party actually steal from team-mates in the electronic versions? Yet our team had a thief character who would do exactly that -- swipe anything that wasn't nailed down -- and sometimes use a crowbar if it was. :)

      Just curious - did y'all treat your Party thief like any other (NPC) thief? Or did he get special treatment because he was part of the Party?

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    8. Re:It was a lot more social by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 1

      But did they even know someone was stealing from them, or who was doing it? Just because the players knew what was going on doesn't mean the characters did.

      --
      Happy people make bad consumers.
    9. Re:It was a lot more social by Whorhay · · Score: 1

      Exactly!

      I played a good bit of these types of games as a kid, D&D, Shadowrun, various White Wolf games. And we played them as games, none of us cared to actually try and act out scenes or conversations. Even my Thespian friends didn't care to play some predetermined role, just playing the game using the established rules and systems was all we wanted. This probably worked well because we were all too broke to afford buying silly modules anyways. So the stories and adventures we had were almost entirely of our own making.

    10. Re:It was a lot more social by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really like playing with props and have used that for money for years now. When I first did it I was running a Thieves Guild game with a standing rule that you had to watch your money pouch as it was fair game if left unattended. One of the players was really upset when this happened to him (his wife swiped it when he got up to go to the kitchen), but it really added to the game (and he got over being upset). My current group is too friendly to be that overt, but often at least one of the characters will have sticky fingers -- and most characters figure it out (some slower than others if they are very trusting). Yet, they let the "thief" count out the money. I use silver based economies where gold coins are scarce. In one campaign no one had any gold -- except one character who had a pouch full of it unbeknownst to the other characters (the players suspected, but didn't know he had any until late in the campaign).

      In the current campaign there are good characters and evil characters. If the system were D&D one would be lawful good and one of the others is a necromancer tainted with evil. The party has issues being cohesive, especially at the start where the one frequently agitated to simply leave the necromancer behind. But they manage, and the necromancer has saved their lives more than once making moral judgements ambiguous. A lengthy argument where the necromancer tried to convince the holy man to cleanse him of the evil taint, the holy man turned the village against the party and the charismatic rogue turned the tide.

      Lots and lots and lots of role playing, none of which you can find in a computer adventure game and most of which doesn't involve any die rolling at all, much less combat. I have gotten complaints from female players about the lack of fighting opportunities, though not often, and I try to keep enough action in the game to keep them happy.

      Someone sat in as observer on a game I played in years and years ago and remarked afterward, "all you guys do is sit around and bullshit". I think that pretty well sums it up. If you don't have anything vested in it, a true *role playing* campaign is of little interest to observers. It isn't a spectator sport, it is *participatory*. And, in a healthy campaign, it is *alive* where no one really knows where it is going. A good referee will be responsive to the game and not try to lock players into a certain story.

    11. Re:It was a lot more social by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I left D&D behind a long time ago, but in a Gloranthan campaign I once played a primitive barbarian. The referee got bored with Glorantha (it was the last in a long run of campaigns), so he warped the party into Cthulhu By Gaslight and someone made the mistake of trying to explain revolvers to the characters. It didn't take long before my character had an injured hand from testing/demonstrating what he was told using a bullet in one hand and...

      He wasn't a dumb character, he was just seeing if he understood. The revolver explanation had omitted the necessity of having the bullet in a chamber or any handling of the munition.

      Good players can separate what they know from what their characters know, though sometimes it is difficult and it often works best to do some things out of sight.

    12. Re:It was a lot more social by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 1

      So, to get this straight, you are seriously wondering why someone would insist that the point of playing something called a "role playing game" would be to play a role. Probably because if they didn't then what you were playing would have to have another name.

      --
      Happy people make bad consumers.
    13. Re:It was a lot more social by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      How often does the thief in the party actually steal from team-mates in the electronic versions? Yet our team had a thief character who would do exactly that -- swipe anything that wasn't nailed down -- and sometimes use a crowbar if it was. :)

      I can remember a couple of sessions where we never even got fully equipped before getting into trouble because the party thief tried to rip off the shopkeep or someone in the bar where all the characters met to start, but I can't think of many cases where the thief didn't have at least a little respect for his party. The rest of them knew where he slept, after all.

      --
      The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
    14. Re:It was a lot more social by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      It was called "role playing" instead of "roll playing" for a reason. :)

      This. I mean, it's one reason I prefer the Paranoia series - because yes, you can make a die roll, but that's merely a suggestion - the GM has the real power to decide what REALLY happens. Roll failed? Well, what's more fun - it failed, or it succeeded, but in unexpected ways?

      It's one reason the game basically says "GM fiat" is the best armor you can equip yourself with (or worst, depending), as with weapons and such.

      Otherwise the game really just boils down to a "press your luck" style game where gameplay revolves around your luck with rolling dice. Gee, they make board games that do just that.

      Heck, one GM I know enforced "practicality" rules - if you wore your armor too long without cleaning it, he would impose "stink" on you. Perhaps it was good (you reek so badly your enemy passes out), or bad (your stench made everyone in your party sick).

      The goal is to have fun, not run some scripted activity.

    15. Re:It was a lot more social by khallow · · Score: 1

      So, to get this straight, you are seriously wondering why someone would insist that the point of playing something called a "role playing game" would be to play a role.

      Believe me, I don't wonder about that even a little. Instead, I want to make sure my role playing is sanctioned.

    16. Re:It was a lot more social by khallow · · Score: 1

      Incidentally, I have played in three role playing games where people were playing themselves in the game. Two of those times, I played myself.

    17. Re:It was a lot more social by slappyjack · · Score: 1

      The flip side of this is when you just want to play a game. There is a bit of fun in bashing shit, taking its stuff, then being able to bash BIGGER shit and getting BETTER stuff.

      People I know set up a game for after work, asked me to play, and I had to sa no. Why? The thought of having to wait 40 minutes between events where we got things done because you always had to wait for whoever felt the need to ROLE PLAY MY WACKY QUIRKS at that exact time, when I just want to buy some fucking rope, would have made it a horribly unpleasant experience.

      I've watched them play a couple times. Its amazing how long a combat takes when every die roll is precedeed by a speech about the glory of wherever-you're-from. ugh.

      --
      s'wut i sed.
  6. Sphere of Annihilation in the Mouth by Guy+From+V · · Score: 1

    Most of the Expert (X# series) were damn good, like X1: The Isle of Dread and X2: Castle Amber. This one was completely underwhelming. PS I had to add the Tomb of Horrors trope somewhere...

  7. Finally, 5th Edition! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    My 4th Ed books are totally worn out.

  8. Re:Fun article. But "Quagmire"?! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Funny

    Giggygaxiddy.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  9. Professional, soulless dungeons vs. real played by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "For me, "hobbyist" refers not esthetics so much as *origin*. That is, whence did game X or module Y come? Was it created to fill a slot in a production schedule or did it arise out of play? That's the big difference between, say, Gygax's Giants-Drow series and the Dragonlance modules. The former were professional write-ups of adventures based in actual play, whereas Dragonlance was conceived from start to finish as an effort to sell modules. Certainly Dragonlance borrowed elements from adventures and campaigns that were actually played (like Jeff Grubb's deities), but there was no such thing as a Dragonlance campaign prior to its being written up for sale, unlike nearly adventure Gary Gygax wrote during his time at TSR."

    -- James Maliszewski, Grognardia.blogspot.com

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re:Professional, soulless dungeons vs. real played by Guy+From+V · · Score: 1

      I'd mod up except that whole me posting stuff already...and probably more, since the Erol Otus Basic and Expert sets were my vector into the whole RPG shebang. Then AD&D after that. The A1-A4 Slave Lords' setting were some of my favorites and I think they were designed for gaming specifically, I remember the test-characters names. Same with Tomb of Horrors and The Temple of Elemental Evil. But, the original I6: Ravenloft was mainly a story-driven session and it was best before all the back-story was added. Before Vampire: The Masquerade, Count Strahd von Zarovich was the shit.

  10. Keep on the Borderlands... by Kaitiff · · Score: 1

    Best damn module EVER. :) I had bought a second hand copy of the original boxed set, and with it the guy threw in that module since it was low level and he'd played the hell outta it. I introduced it to my little brother and all my friends and there weren't any caves safe for Kobold or Orc or Bugbear to be found! I never played a character to very high levels, I found that D&D was more fun at the lower levels. At the point where you had to fight Dragons, Gods and Giants I lost interest. I moved on to more technical RPG's with a better combat and magic system in later years but the fun I had playing that old original set of D&D boxed set will never fade for me.

    --
    If I sound stupid, it's not me talking....
    1. Re:Keep on the Borderlands... by operagost · · Score: 1

      By the mid 80s, TSR was including that module with the Basic set.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    2. Re:Keep on the Borderlands... by wrecked · · Score: 1

      D&D 5e brings back a lot of the crap I didn't like from 3.x, ignores positive changes made to the game in 4e (powers, tactical battle with miniatures, skill challenges) and introduces a couple of new things: higher prices for books, missing information on how to handle certain situations (for instance: poison), and advantage/disadvantage. All summed up, it's got me saying "meh". The fact that the core rulebooks cost $50 each instead of $20-$30 makes them out of the price range of what 12 year-olds can afford (the age when I started playing AD&D). It seems to me that WotC really fucked up this release, not having the PHB, DMG, and MM ready at the same time. Yes the new books are gorgeous, but have you ever had to use them for building a character or referencing information mid-game? I give it a C.

      I respectfully disagree. I started with 1st edition AD&D but lost interest once 2e came around. I once had a look at 4e, and found it completely baffling. I recently got back into D&D with a group of other middle-aged folk, and we initially using the 1e rules. When the 5e playtests came out, we switched to that, because we found that the new rules evoked the feel of AD&D, but are well-designed and coherent. I have all of the 5e rulebooks now, and I personally feel that these rules are like 1e but with all of the stuff that I would have houseruled anyway.

      Regarding cost, anyone can download the "Basic" Rules for free: http://dnd.wizards.com/article...

      The main difference between the Basic Rules and the hardcopies is that Basic is limited to the four classic D&D classes: Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Mage. Otherwise, the Basic Rules are completely functional, and you can play solely with these.

  11. 5th Edition kind of sucks by jsepeta · · Score: 3, Interesting

    D&D 5e brings back a lot of the crap I didn't like from 3.x, ignores positive changes made to the game in 4e (powers, tactical battle with miniatures, skill challenges) and introduces a couple of new things: higher prices for books, missing information on how to handle certain situations (for instance: poison), and advantage/disadvantage. All summed up, it's got me saying "meh". The fact that the core rulebooks cost $50 each instead of $20-$30 makes them out of the price range of what 12 year-olds can afford (the age when I started playing AD&D). It seems to me that WotC really fucked up this release, not having the PHB, DMG, and MM ready at the same time. Yes the new books are gorgeous, but have you ever had to use them for building a character or referencing information mid-game? I give it a C.

    --
    Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
    1. Re:5th Edition kind of sucks by Chibi+Merrow · · Score: 3

      I'm pretty sure there's precedent for staggered releases of the core rulebooks. 3.5 and 3rd edition were like that, from what I remember, which actually allowed some third-party publishers to swoop in and fill the gap a bit for a few months.

      Also I find it amusing that the things you list as "positive" changes to 4th edition are the exact things people like myself didn't like about it. Considering Pathfinder is far and away the best selling tabletop RPG today, it seems people who liked the 4e "improvements" are in the minority.

      I'd also add that when I bought the 4th edition books, I was shocked to see they lacked rules for crafting (or anything not related to combat, really), stats for metallic dragons, or really any information about monsters other than their most basic combat statistics. So, again, precedent.

      After seeing 5th edition played, and talking to the designers, I'm much more hopeful for it. At the very least, my group is going to try the starter once we're done our current Pathfinder campaign.

      --
      Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
      Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
    2. Re:5th Edition kind of sucks by Iconoclysm · · Score: 1

      Aren't the core rulebooks available as free downloads now? Kindle editions? 12 year olds today have a major advantage when it comes to gaining raw info.

    3. Re:5th Edition kind of sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Powers ruined 4e.

    4. Re:5th Edition kind of sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Skill challenges were positive? We're thinking about the thing with the broken math ('fixed' a few times during the 4e active lifetime), the thing with 5 minutes of dicking around a a dozen dice rolls to get a binary result, and the thing that actively encouraged players with characters whose skills didn't match the challenge to not participate for fill of hurting the party's chances?

      If your skill challeneges didn't suck, your DM was doing one hell of a job - and smartly house ruling a moderatly complex portion of the game rules better than the 4e professional writers.

      Frank and the other folks at The Gaming Den sum up some of the problems better than I:

      http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=49652

      http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52705

    5. Re:5th Edition kind of sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      your DM was doing one hell of a job - and smartly house ruling a moderatly complex portion of the game rules better than the 4e professional writers.

      If anything in the game doesn't suck, that's because your DM is doing a hell of a job.

      Or your players aren't a bunch of dickish farts.

      Either is true.

    6. Re: 5th Edition kind of sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Crafting has always been unimportant to the games of most people, who would rather splatter some goblin brains than make some arrowheads or trade in exotic spices.

      Yeah, some people like that, I guess, but is it necessary for d&d to serve them? Is it even appropriate to try?

      As for the chromatic dragons, they got a book eventually.

    7. Re:5th Edition kind of sucks by ameoba · · Score: 1

      The beauty is that you can still buy and play all the old stuff. There are both official reprints of the old 1st & 2nd edition games as well as free/low cost clones of everything pre-3rd edition (the Original game as well as the early "Basic" box set games). A great many of the adventure modules are available in both PDFs and hardbound reissues of the more iconic ones.

      As for the price of the books, $20 in 1980, adjusted for inflation is $57. It's still hard to swallow when you can buy a printed copy of Basic Fantasy for under $5.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    8. Re:5th Edition kind of sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tactical combat with miniatures is not a new feature. Not to 5th, not to 4th, and not even 3rd. D&D has always been a tactical combat game. It started life as only a tactical combat game.

      If you stopped using miniatures and a battle grid at some point, that's entirely on you, not what edition you were playing.

    9. Re: 5th Edition kind of sucks by Chibi+Merrow · · Score: 1

      Crafting has always been unimportant to the games of most people, who would rather splatter some goblin brains than make some arrowheads or trade in exotic spices.

      Considering the intricately detailed magic item creation rules in the 3rd edition derived games, I have to disagree with you. There's obviously a market for it, as Pathfinder spent a lot of effort on refining the existing mechanics.

      And I said metallic dragons. Chromatic dragons were in the 4e Monster Manual. And that was exactly the problem: The book only had things for you to fight, and only the details you needed to fight them.

      --
      Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
      Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
  12. Still playing 1e after 35+ years by HBI · · Score: 2

    It works (tm). Sure, the books are poorly organized and not every situation is covered, but that is a strength, not a weakness. If some player decides to do something, you evaluate the chances using your head (remember that?) and roll the dice.

    The Giants series is fun. Players are currently at the bottom of the Hall of the Fire Giant King killing trolls after routing the Drow. Soon, they will be heading into the (later titled) Underdark...searching for the Vault of the Drow. Homemade modules are still the best, though. Underneath Nulb, that nasty town where the Temple of Elemental Evil is located, a whole series of dungeons exists in my world. Its most powerful inhabitant is the lich Gehirn, who asks riddles - trading your life for his magical goodies.

    A popular religion in the area is the worship of Goatse. The holy symbol is two hands clutching a ring. I believe that worship is popular here, too.

    Anyway, anything that can keep adults in their 30s and 40s occupied once every two weeks and having fun is a good thing. Who needs 5e?

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:Still playing 1e after 35+ years by Whorhay · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I didn't start playing until 2nd edition I believe, but I feel much the same way. The more I read about the newer editions the more it sounds like they are trying to imitate video games. Which is amusing because what I always wanted was a video game that would imitate the open world sandbox and freedom of D&D and similiar games.

  13. Re:ou are posting: as For a Free Internet Comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I remember when intelligent conversation could be found at Slashdot, not the wet dreams and bad jokes of 10 yr. olds.

  14. Young people... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    When I was a lead video game tester at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple identity crisis), I had to train fresh out of high school kids as video game testers. They always think that video games don't exist before I was born. I introduced them to a tester who tested arcade games in the 1980's, and then floored them by introducing them to a tester who tested pen-and-paper games in the 1970's.

  15. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion