After a particularly tedious year-long foray into 4E (hey, we tried), we went back to 3.5 and are having fun again w/ D&D. I'm pretty dead-set on 3.5, and not ever buying another D&D product past that again. 3.5 4 life. I dont want my tabletop RPG to "evolve" into what 4E has become, and I shudder to think what horrors 5E will unleash upon the world.
That said, i just got the Pathfinder core rulebook, since all the cool kids are doing it and it's heavily 3.5'ish I had to do it. ='.'=
But anyway, the point of this thread is that my disdain for "new and improved" D&D has actually traumatized us so, that I've went and picked up the original D&D game. Or rather a retro-clone thereof, "Labyrinth Lord". The core rules are a free download. We rolled up a few characters in about 15 mins, and I ran the group thru a small adventure that I made using a lot of wonderfully random stuff (love this book by the way). We laughed, we cried, they died. Not all of them, just a couple!
an example some things that were different:
-fantasy races are classes alongside the traditional classes
-initiative is rolled every round, therefore lending some much needed chaos to the battle as one side can potentially go twice in a row.
-there's an order to combatants: missle/spell/melee
-no attacks of opportunity
-wandering type/number of creatures are rolled per level of the labyrinth youre on. Things can get crazy quick when you simply go down to the next level of a dungeon, and roll enemies one level above the crew to encounter.
It was weird, but it I must admit that it was cool. It was a little more work for the DM, but overall it was a good time. There's a lot of this retro-stuff out there, and we're just digging into it now. I'm in the process of collecting the original D&D books, partly to fill in a new niche in my collection, but also because I'm considering making at least one week a month "retro-night". We roll with first edition characters and see what happens.
btw - I cant recommend enough that "Dungeon Alphabet" book that i referenced above in a link, it really has the art and spirit of the old D&D books, and has random content galore. And it's like 10 bucks!
That said, i just got the Pathfinder core rulebook, since all the cool kids are doing it and it's heavily 3.5'ish I had to do it. ='.'=
But anyway, the point of this thread is that my disdain for "new and improved" D&D has actually traumatized us so, that I've went and picked up the original D&D game. Or rather a retro-clone thereof, "Labyrinth Lord". The core rules are a free download. We rolled up a few characters in about 15 mins, and I ran the group thru a small adventure that I made using a lot of wonderfully random stuff (love this book by the way). We laughed, we cried, they died. Not all of them, just a couple!
an example some things that were different:
-fantasy races are classes alongside the traditional classes
-initiative is rolled every round, therefore lending some much needed chaos to the battle as one side can potentially go twice in a row.
-there's an order to combatants: missle/spell/melee
-no attacks of opportunity
-wandering type/number of creatures are rolled per level of the labyrinth youre on. Things can get crazy quick when you simply go down to the next level of a dungeon, and roll enemies one level above the crew to encounter.
It was weird, but it I must admit that it was cool. It was a little more work for the DM, but overall it was a good time. There's a lot of this retro-stuff out there, and we're just digging into it now. I'm in the process of collecting the original D&D books, partly to fill in a new niche in my collection, but also because I'm considering making at least one week a month "retro-night". We roll with first edition characters and see what happens.
btw - I cant recommend enough that "Dungeon Alphabet" book that i referenced above in a link, it really has the art and spirit of the old D&D books, and has random content galore. And it's like 10 bucks!
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