This is a thread for older players to sit back and commiserate about gaming. Actually anyone can join in if you like.
Think about this thread as a place to discuss:
Arthritis
Hearing loss
Sitting on our porches screaming at the young adventurers to get off our lawn
How we had to walk up hill both ways in 4 foot snow drifts to kill Kobolds.
How lead figures were so much better than those later "safe" ones
How we survived just fine with 10 character classes.
Why the Dragon Magazine never finished its "Sex and D&D" comic series.
How Doritos are superior adventuring to plain potato chips for game nights.
So if you started with B1 - In Search of the Unknown, and played with the crappy plastic dice which TSR supplied in the box.
Or you ever rolled a 20 to place a 30 lb bolder in the center of Grond's head
This place is for you. Go on over to the bar, get a drink. Grond tends a mean bar, and he usually doesn't poison patrons. If he does we have a good supply of cure poison potions sitting in the dorm fridge by the gaming table.
Ok guys, roll a d6 for initiative and lets get this party started.
Grues namesake was from the old text game Zork, where if you went exploring in the dark, you'd be eaten by this flesh devouring monster. Grue, did not eat flesh, but he was truly a monster.
AD&D 2nd was the game, and Grue was a Barbarian, introduced in The Complete Barbarians Handbook. Rolling for stats(because we ALL rolled for stats back then, even if the complete barbarians handbook provided 12 different options for stats), Grue achieved the following numbers.
STR: 18 DEX: 18 CON: 18 INT: 3 WIS: 3 CHA: 3
Barbs back then received bonus XP if your STR and Dex were higher than 16, and bonus hit points if your CON was higher than 17. Grue leveled fast and furious. Grue however, could not function in social checks. The book suggests applying penalties to social checks, and with his already amazing low Charisma, the highest he was rolling on average, was negative numbers. Combine this with the fact that in AD&D 2nd, you had incentives to destroying enemy spell casters(you were afraid of magic), restrictions on magic items(18 INT? Still can't read), they were a though class to roleplay.
Grue was easily convinced. Tell him to do something, he did it. This worked against the party a few times, but generally, Grue was just pointed as a tactical nuke. Point him in the right direction and he was off. ANY spell that had a mental save, we just assume he failed. Our Cleric spent a majority of his time just making sure that Grue wasn't being pointed at us. Let Grue take the beating, and EVERYONE ELSE just stands back. It was a much different table, but we all enjoyed it. Grue frequently threw people across rooms, piledrived idiots into the ground(wrestling was FUN back in the 90s), and just stood in the middle of large hordes of small monsters and laughed.
The DM didn't enjoy Grue though. At one juncture, he comes across a wooden ring that is radiating with magic. It's not made of metal, so he doesn't immediately go hulk smash, and it's speaking to him, a la The Hobbit. Grue puts the ring on, and his INT is now an 18, and WIS/CHA are now a 10. Grue is now, a functional human being. Grue HATES this ring, and tries to take it off. He can't though, it's cursed. Grue goes through about two sessions where he is BEGGING people to uncurse this ring. People try to remove curse, which back then only gave you a CHANCE on a CHANCE to drop the item. The person casting remove curse has to roll a percentile, getting a 76 or higher, and then if that succeeds, the person wearing the item has to roll a 50 percent shot to drop it. Turns out, these also were not Grues forte. He was basically destined for this ring.
Without going into gory details, Grue ends up deciding he doesn't want to exist anymore because he realizes the HORRIBLE things he did while he was a dumb idiot, and we sunset the character as we did back in 2nd, in a very big battle designed for him to lose.
I don't miss 2nd edition mechanics, I miss the stories and times involved because the game was still new, the mechanics were ALL over the place and it made for some WACKY adjudications. This is to me why RAW/RAI aren't as important as Rule of Cool. Rules exist as a construct, but at the end, decide what's cool at your table and if its SOMEWHAT plausible, lets go.
I started with my brother as a 1 on 1 playing Keep on the Borderlands. He was DM. He added so much to the module, I never got to the main quest. There was a small cave directly north of the town of Homlet. I went due north out of Homlet and stumbled on the cave in two days. My brother made a whole dungeon out of that cave. He didn't kill any of the members of my party (I had something like nine "hirelings"). He got P.O.ed and we sort of dropped the game. back in those days, DMs wanted to kill the characters. I didn't think they should try to kill the characters, but if the characters died, they died.
A coupla years later I DMed for my own friends. I created a small party of four, a lvl 3 Magic User, a lvl 2 fighter, a lvl 1 thief and a lvl 1 cleric; all DM PCs. My buddies had fun for three or four sessions. Then one buddy confronted me saying my DM PCs were running the whole show and I had to drop them. Knowing how lethal D&D is at lvl 1 I responded, "Hey, the truth is if I didn't have those guys in the party, you would all be killed in the next session because I have so little experience that I couldn't balance the encounters." He responded that if I couldn't drop them then the others didn't want to play. And I said, well I guess we should just stop playing then, because I don't want to kill your characters because I don't know what I am doing.
And that was the end of it for years. I played one night when I stumbled on a game at college during exams. It was fun.
My son started playing 4e when he was in HS. I encouraged him by offering to get him the basic three rulebooks. He turned me down and just borrowed his friends books a coupla nights.
Now my son plays 5e and I tell him stories about the old days and he just shakes his head and says "You don't know how to play D&D the right way." Where can you go from there? I'd tell him to get off my lawn, but he has to mow the darn thing.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I started in the late 70’s with the basic boxed set, and then when the 1980s rolled around I began collecting AD&D hardback books. (Still have those, including the Deities and Demigods which had stuff that was later dropped because a different games company got the rights to Lovecraft and Moorcock’s IP. )
We even still use some of my Genadier & Ral Partha minis in games I run to this day.
I remember being really interested in D&D, and getting the Red Box for Xmas. Unfortunately, it was actually a D&D jigsaw puzzle.
Finally got to play D&D a couple of years later with some friends, although that was weird as we didn't realise the the Basic Box Set, and the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook were actually two different rule sets. Made for some weird playing.
My favourite character was a 2nd Edition Bard's Handbook Gnomish Tinkerer. Name of Professor Binagran Lanorane, Master Craftsman, Doctor of Humane Philosophy, Court Lord of Bissel, Baron of Veluna, and Member of the Companions of the Shroud. (He liked to collect titles).
From memory, he got to about level 13 before it fizzled. I think I still have the character sheet somewhere.
You don't know how to play D&D the right way." Where can you go from there? I'd tell him to get off my lawn, but he has to mow the darn thing.
What are the differences in the way he plays ?
As you know, when we played it was very tactical with maps and grids and stuff. I would describe in detail how we would fight in tight formations so the monsters couldn't slip through and we would tactically use our ranged weapon PCs to amplify our firepower. He responds, "D&D isn't supposed to be played like that." I think he means it isn't a strict boardgame. Well, back then it certainly was. As a matter of fact, in dungeons it is still pretty much like that. I remember all the trouble we would go through to search and map the dungeon.
Now when faced with a challenge about an enemy lair I might ask, "Where do they get their water?" And he says, "Who cares?" And I respond, "If I can screw with their water supply, they will have to come out to me." And he says, "We're not playing it like that. They have water and you don't know where it comes from."
I talk about how Paladins, on paper, looked really great in AD&D. And then I told him that nobody would live long enough to cast spells, because it was a miracle if the campaign lasted long enough to make it to 5th level. And he responds, "That's because you don't know how to play D&D."
We have a game with some friends (family friends in both generations). The dad from the other family wanted to introduce D&D to his daughter (13) and his son (15) had already started playing. We are at level 7 and scrambling to get out of town during a fight. At some point in the fight the rogue decides to cast a spell and then he says, "I'm going to make a bonus attack with my ..." and I said, "If you take the "Cast Action" you can't use "Attack" as a bonus action." We go on from there. At home my son chides me, "Dad, you don't stop a game and tell your party mate they can't attack. That's not how D&D is played." And I just respond, "How do you play D&D if the rules don't mean anything?"
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I’ve collected all the Original Editions and 2nd editions in PDF form. The reason for this is nostalgia. I loved AD&D.
In the mid ‘90s I got really religious and foolishly threw all of my stuff away. I still look back and shake my head about that.
I’ve purchased some of the 5e books. Problem is that is that almost 2 years ago I was let go from my job. So I’m in process of starting my own consulting company. Something I have learned is that when employment tanks there are a butt-ton of people who become “computer consultants.”
My real love is writing and I’m in the process of revising an urban fantasy trilogy and also working on a sci-fi series.
The anxiety of the pandemic and money worries is a creative killing combination. I turned back to role playing games to help spark that.
I have 5 kids and I run a really sporadic game for them, but I’m fleshing out a new campaign that they will be play testing before I open it up on a VTT with others.
Anyhow, I’m about to get back into my AWS certification training so I can pivot my career.
Anyone seeing the graphics on my first post? If not I’ll have to drop them on a website I own and pull them from there. Google Photos is a pain in the butt for photo sharing.
Heritage Miniatures - decided to bring out a line of painted figures in 1982 or so.
the contracted with a Chinese company to do the work and sent out a sampling of miniatures (several sets of each) to have the vendor paint them. The samples came back looking pretty good so they sent a BUTT-LOAD (a huge amount) of figures to be completed.
There must have been a huge mis-communications because the company contracted reportedly freaked out at the large shipment.
The end result was heritage miniatures basically got a huge shipment of lead figures which were pretty much dunked in paint and were pretty much useless.
Later the president of Heritage landed a job with TSR to produce their line of “Approved & Official TSR” miniatures. As a side note. TSR purchased heritages molding and production equipment when Heritage declared bankruptcy.
Ok images are fixed. I ended up creating a library on my company's website (I own the company so it's ok. I asked my wife) It's running Wordpress so I can link images.
Who knows maybe the goo just doesn't like to share with others.
Methinks it might be time for those of us who remember Judges Guild, dice so soft that sorbet enquired as to what their secret was, and the unadulterated thrill of finding a dragon inside of a 20’ by 20’ room to join forces and create a Hall of the Silver Horde.
Gaming with kids is... fine. Gaming with 40yo (and younger)... it can lack something.
I’ve neither the technical know how or equipment to build a site... maybe someone who does know how would be willing? I’ll help with content and whatever admin I can do. Hopefully the notion sparks some interest.
I miss BECMI a lot. Yeah, it wasn’t as flexible as the current stuff but a lot of the rules were neat, even if I didn’t actually know anybody who used them (like fighter getting a certain amount of followers or magic users getting a certain amount of apprentices once you got to the right level). The rules for land and nobility and war fighting were enjoyable in the Companion edition, and I absolutely loved getting the Mystara gazetteers when they came out.
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This is a thread for older players to sit back and commiserate about gaming. Actually anyone can join in if you like.
Think about this thread as a place to discuss:
So if you started with B1 - In Search of the Unknown, and played with the crappy plastic dice which TSR supplied in the box.
Or you ever rolled a 20 to place a 30 lb bolder in the center of Grond's head
This place is for you. Go on over to the bar, get a drink. Grond tends a mean bar, and he usually doesn't poison patrons. If he does we have a good supply of cure poison potions sitting in the dorm fridge by the gaming table.
Ok guys, roll a d6 for initiative and lets get this party started.
I bow before the one who found the way through the original brown books and when TSR actually stood for something.
🤣
TSR had issues. That we can't deny. Wizards has their own issues. As long as something has humans in it... it will have issues.
Grue was a character a former friend of mine had.
Grues namesake was from the old text game Zork, where if you went exploring in the dark, you'd be eaten by this flesh devouring monster. Grue, did not eat flesh, but he was truly a monster.
AD&D 2nd was the game, and Grue was a Barbarian, introduced in The Complete Barbarians Handbook. Rolling for stats(because we ALL rolled for stats back then, even if the complete barbarians handbook provided 12 different options for stats), Grue achieved the following numbers.
STR: 18 DEX: 18 CON: 18 INT: 3 WIS: 3 CHA: 3
Barbs back then received bonus XP if your STR and Dex were higher than 16, and bonus hit points if your CON was higher than 17. Grue leveled fast and furious. Grue however, could not function in social checks. The book suggests applying penalties to social checks, and with his already amazing low Charisma, the highest he was rolling on average, was negative numbers. Combine this with the fact that in AD&D 2nd, you had incentives to destroying enemy spell casters(you were afraid of magic), restrictions on magic items(18 INT? Still can't read), they were a though class to roleplay.
Grue was easily convinced. Tell him to do something, he did it. This worked against the party a few times, but generally, Grue was just pointed as a tactical nuke. Point him in the right direction and he was off. ANY spell that had a mental save, we just assume he failed. Our Cleric spent a majority of his time just making sure that Grue wasn't being pointed at us. Let Grue take the beating, and EVERYONE ELSE just stands back. It was a much different table, but we all enjoyed it. Grue frequently threw people across rooms, piledrived idiots into the ground(wrestling was FUN back in the 90s), and just stood in the middle of large hordes of small monsters and laughed.
The DM didn't enjoy Grue though. At one juncture, he comes across a wooden ring that is radiating with magic. It's not made of metal, so he doesn't immediately go hulk smash, and it's speaking to him, a la The Hobbit. Grue puts the ring on, and his INT is now an 18, and WIS/CHA are now a 10. Grue is now, a functional human being. Grue HATES this ring, and tries to take it off. He can't though, it's cursed. Grue goes through about two sessions where he is BEGGING people to uncurse this ring. People try to remove curse, which back then only gave you a CHANCE on a CHANCE to drop the item. The person casting remove curse has to roll a percentile, getting a 76 or higher, and then if that succeeds, the person wearing the item has to roll a 50 percent shot to drop it. Turns out, these also were not Grues forte. He was basically destined for this ring.
Without going into gory details, Grue ends up deciding he doesn't want to exist anymore because he realizes the HORRIBLE things he did while he was a dumb idiot, and we sunset the character as we did back in 2nd, in a very big battle designed for him to lose.
I don't miss 2nd edition mechanics, I miss the stories and times involved because the game was still new, the mechanics were ALL over the place and it made for some WACKY adjudications. This is to me why RAW/RAI aren't as important as Rule of Cool. Rules exist as a construct, but at the end, decide what's cool at your table and if its SOMEWHAT plausible, lets go.
I started with my brother as a 1 on 1 playing Keep on the Borderlands. He was DM. He added so much to the module, I never got to the main quest. There was a small cave directly north of the town of Homlet. I went due north out of Homlet and stumbled on the cave in two days. My brother made a whole dungeon out of that cave. He didn't kill any of the members of my party (I had something like nine "hirelings"). He got P.O.ed and we sort of dropped the game. back in those days, DMs wanted to kill the characters. I didn't think they should try to kill the characters, but if the characters died, they died.
A coupla years later I DMed for my own friends. I created a small party of four, a lvl 3 Magic User, a lvl 2 fighter, a lvl 1 thief and a lvl 1 cleric; all DM PCs. My buddies had fun for three or four sessions. Then one buddy confronted me saying my DM PCs were running the whole show and I had to drop them. Knowing how lethal D&D is at lvl 1 I responded, "Hey, the truth is if I didn't have those guys in the party, you would all be killed in the next session because I have so little experience that I couldn't balance the encounters." He responded that if I couldn't drop them then the others didn't want to play. And I said, well I guess we should just stop playing then, because I don't want to kill your characters because I don't know what I am doing.
And that was the end of it for years. I played one night when I stumbled on a game at college during exams. It was fun.
My son started playing 4e when he was in HS. I encouraged him by offering to get him the basic three rulebooks. He turned me down and just borrowed his friends books a coupla nights.
Now my son plays 5e and I tell him stories about the old days and he just shakes his head and says "You don't know how to play D&D the right way." Where can you go from there? I'd tell him to get off my lawn, but he has to mow the darn thing.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Thank the deities and demi-gods for whoever came up with pre-painted miniatures. Those fine details are for younger eyes.
Yes. I have to take my glasses off to paint nowadays. Takes a lot longer than it used to.
I started in the late 70’s with the basic boxed set, and then when the 1980s rolled around I began collecting AD&D hardback books. (Still have those, including the Deities and Demigods which had stuff that was later dropped because a different games company got the rights to Lovecraft and Moorcock’s IP. )
We even still use some of my Genadier & Ral Partha minis in games I run to this day.
I remember being really interested in D&D, and getting the Red Box for Xmas. Unfortunately, it was actually a D&D jigsaw puzzle.
Finally got to play D&D a couple of years later with some friends, although that was weird as we didn't realise the the Basic Box Set, and the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook were actually two different rule sets. Made for some weird playing.
My favourite character was a 2nd Edition Bard's Handbook Gnomish Tinkerer. Name of Professor Binagran Lanorane, Master Craftsman, Doctor of Humane Philosophy, Court Lord of Bissel, Baron of Veluna, and Member of the Companions of the Shroud. (He liked to collect titles).
From memory, he got to about level 13 before it fizzled. I think I still have the character sheet somewhere.
As you know, when we played it was very tactical with maps and grids and stuff. I would describe in detail how we would fight in tight formations so the monsters couldn't slip through and we would tactically use our ranged weapon PCs to amplify our firepower. He responds, "D&D isn't supposed to be played like that." I think he means it isn't a strict boardgame. Well, back then it certainly was. As a matter of fact, in dungeons it is still pretty much like that. I remember all the trouble we would go through to search and map the dungeon.
Now when faced with a challenge about an enemy lair I might ask, "Where do they get their water?" And he says, "Who cares?" And I respond, "If I can screw with their water supply, they will have to come out to me." And he says, "We're not playing it like that. They have water and you don't know where it comes from."
I talk about how Paladins, on paper, looked really great in AD&D. And then I told him that nobody would live long enough to cast spells, because it was a miracle if the campaign lasted long enough to make it to 5th level. And he responds, "That's because you don't know how to play D&D."
We have a game with some friends (family friends in both generations). The dad from the other family wanted to introduce D&D to his daughter (13) and his son (15) had already started playing. We are at level 7 and scrambling to get out of town during a fight. At some point in the fight the rogue decides to cast a spell and then he says, "I'm going to make a bonus attack with my ..." and I said, "If you take the "Cast Action" you can't use "Attack" as a bonus action." We go on from there. At home my son chides me, "Dad, you don't stop a game and tell your party mate they can't attack. That's not how D&D is played." And I just respond, "How do you play D&D if the rules don't mean anything?"
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I’ve collected all the Original Editions and 2nd editions in PDF form. The reason for this is nostalgia. I loved AD&D.
In the mid ‘90s I got really religious and foolishly threw all of my stuff away. I still look back and shake my head about that.
I’ve purchased some of the 5e books. Problem is that is that almost 2 years ago I was let go from my job. So I’m in process of starting my own consulting company. Something I have learned is that when employment tanks there are a butt-ton of people who become “computer consultants.”
My real love is writing and I’m in the process of revising an urban fantasy trilogy and also working on a sci-fi series.
The anxiety of the pandemic and money worries is a creative killing combination. I turned back to role playing games to help spark that.
I have 5 kids and I run a really sporadic game for them, but I’m fleshing out a new campaign that they will be play testing before I open it up on a VTT with others.
Anyhow, I’m about to get back into my AWS certification training so I can pivot my career.
Thanks for joining in with this old fart 🤣😂🤣😂
Anyone seeing the graphics on my first post? If not I’ll have to drop them on a website I own and pull them from there. Google Photos is a pain in the butt for photo sharing.
Yes, I said it and I’ll die on this hill.
Sry, the graphics just appear as small grey minus signs.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Oh do I have a story for you!
Heritage Miniatures - decided to bring out a line of painted figures in 1982 or so.
the contracted with a Chinese company to do the work and sent out a sampling of miniatures (several sets of each) to have the vendor paint them. The samples came back looking pretty good so they sent a BUTT-LOAD (a huge amount) of figures to be completed.
There must have been a huge mis-communications because the company contracted reportedly freaked out at the large shipment.
The end result was heritage miniatures basically got a huge shipment of lead figures which were pretty much dunked in paint and were pretty much useless.
Later the president of Heritage landed a job with TSR to produce their line of “Approved & Official TSR” miniatures. As a side note. TSR purchased heritages molding and production equipment when Heritage declared bankruptcy.
I appreciate the notice.
I work in computes and they are still black magick.
Ok images are fixed. I ended up creating a library on my company's website (I own the company so it's ok. I asked my wife) It's running Wordpress so I can link images.
Who knows maybe the goo just doesn't like to share with others.
Love this! I am going to post my favorite character that I played in the past.
On a side note, this character is now an NPC in my campaign which I am working on.
Hail and well met.
Methinks it might be time for those of us who remember Judges Guild, dice so soft that sorbet enquired as to what their secret was, and the unadulterated thrill of finding a dragon inside of a 20’ by 20’ room to join forces and create a Hall of the Silver Horde.
Gaming with kids is... fine. Gaming with 40yo (and younger)... it can lack something.
I’ve neither the technical know how or equipment to build a site... maybe someone who does know how would be willing? I’ll help with content and whatever admin I can do. Hopefully the notion sparks some interest.
Be well, be safe.
I started playing in middle school with 2E. Naturally, we had extensive homebrew rules regarding farts.
Sigh.
I miss BECMI a lot. Yeah, it wasn’t as flexible as the current stuff but a lot of the rules were neat, even if I didn’t actually know anybody who used them (like fighter getting a certain amount of followers or magic users getting a certain amount of apprentices once you got to the right level). The rules for land and nobility and war fighting were enjoyable in the Companion edition, and I absolutely loved getting the Mystara gazetteers when they came out.