But not an 18 in sight either. So no player could just pour additional points into it and start with a 20. At Level 1. Something so inconceivable in the early days of the hobby when characters were supposed to grow into becoming heroes.
Funnily enough, with 2024 rules, starting with 20 in your main score could actually be detrimental for feats, unless each feat you take has a second ability score that can be put into one of your other scores or the feats you want to take don't benefit your mainscore. On the other hand, it would reward a player that got to 20 at first level with the choice to pick feats they normally wouldn't take as their main ability wouldn't benefit from it.
There is one clear difference between old school D&D and modern D&D, a distinction that even in the old school D&D days didn't last very long and was really only prevalent in B/X games mostly. Even in AD&D games this really wasn't the case.
That distinction is the difference between generating characters and creating characters.
In B/X you generated a character. You rolled 3d6 down the chain, those results would define what your options are. Classes had minimum requirements so based on those rolls from the selection of seven classes would reduce your choices on average to 3-4. You picked your class and that was it, there were no other choices, selections or options. The only decision you actually made during character generation was which class you played. That was the whole shebang.
AD&D introduced character creation. 3d6 was not an optional method of ability score generation. The idea behind all of the methods is that you would have a wide selection of scores typically or decent scores that would allow you to make the next set of character creation choices. Race, class, decisions like wether to multi-class or not. Grant it the line between generation and creation was a bit blurry still, but it was definitely closer to creation then generation.
In either case this principle idea espoused by a lot of my fellow OSR gamers that players in the old school days were fond or or even commonly "generated" characters is completely false, it was as rare then as it is today. Players wanted options, they came to the table with "I want to play X race, Y Class" and concepts like "I'm going to make (build) a character that specializes in X or Y. With expanded splat books you picked Weapon Proficiencies and Non-Weapon proficiencies. etc....
Building characters was as much a thing in old school days as it is today. The only difference today is how many options you have and certainly the default ability score method really doesn't eliminate any options, you can basically make any sort of character you want with any method of ability score generation, even 4d6 since its not down the chain, allows for this flexibility as almost all classes are based on a single ability score which you are certainly going to get at least one decent one doing 6x4d6.
Morale of the story, not a bloody thing has changed since 1e. Yes there was that one exception B/X and BECMI where character creation wasn't a thing (it was character generation) but anyone who actually played D&D back then knows full well that the basic culture of D&D was unanimously that AD&D was the game for big kids and B/X for the little kids and newbies. There are far more people playing B/X, BECMI and clones of these games today than there ever were in the 80's.
I'm a OSR die hard, I love old school games, I love a good classic stiff and bad ass game of AD&D so much so that I still play it today, but lets not re-write history here.
It’s a short article but if you don’t want to click the link, the TLDR is that roleplaying does not preclude optimization and optimization does not preclude roleplaying despite the contingent of those rude people who feel the need to tell others they are doing it wrong.
And yet, my lived experience is that the vast majority of players I've been in campaigns with who have focused on build optimization had no time for the role-playing aspect of the campaign, and were basically only there to see how much damage they could do in a round. Their backstories were just there to provide story hooks to lead to the next combat (in which they would naturally be the main character, although I'm not making that connection)
And yet my lived experience is that the people who don't optimize role play the least, the have no investment in the character or game and are only there to play the goofball disruptive person.
That's funny. Because there are entire games that discourage the min max mindset and that inspired by what were much simpler times are wholly character and story focused. As for disruptive: One of the many reasons min maxing is disallowed at many tables is because those with the min max mindset tend to be awfully disruptive. So mired in the rules are they that have allowed them to "build" their characters they often interrupt a DM who has ruled something independent of what the rules say.
It was nice that the most obnoxious players decided to self segregate like that.
Min maxing and power gaming/building has NOTHING to do with how you play. At all. If you are going to be a jerk, you will be regardless of how you make your character. As a full tier no shame power gamer, I build characters the way I WANT them to be, and what I want them to do. My goal isnt to stop other players from engaging in aspects I might not be excited about, and would never stop them doing so, but for those aspects I enjoy most I want to be as efficient as possible, as effective as possible. I often find this allows others to feel free to make less rules efficient characters if they want because there is more slack...cause someone else is picking up that load. I think this whole min max is bad mentality is just silly. Then again i am an engineer so maybe that has something to do with it..lol.
Min maxing and power gaming/building has NOTHING to do with how you play. At all. If you are going to be a jerk, you will be regardless of how you make your character. As a full tier no shame power gamer, I build characters the way I WANT them to be, and what I want them to do. My goal isnt to stop other players from engaging in aspects I might not be excited about, and would never stop them doing so, but for those aspects I enjoy most I want to be as efficient as possible, as effective as possible. I often find this allows others to feel free to make less rules efficient characters if they want because there is more slack...cause someone else is picking up that load. I think this whole min max is bad mentality is just silly. Then again i am an engineer so maybe that has something to do with it..lol.
Almost fully agree. I do think there are limits when it comes to the balance of the game itself. For example as a GM, I know that my players have certain expectations from me for those times when the game lets them down or times when the game mechanic, spell or ability are disruptive or break the tone or story Im trying to create. Any gaming system is going to have blatantly broken elements that were overlooked during testing or things that weren't particularly well thought out. This is normal, in fact, I would say with 100% certainty that no one has ever created an RPG that did have something blatantly broken in it, at least not in the 35+ years I have been playing RPGs. In those cases, I think its perfectly reasonable for GM to say "ok, you found something that is clearly broken" and shut it down by house ruling it or eliminating it.
I have done it many times, in every version of this game (D&D) and I'm 100% sure its only a matter of time before one of my players (guys just like you) will find something I'm going to alter or eliminate in this next edition. I don't think there is anything wrong with power gamers and people optimizing, in fact, I encourage it, go nuts, but as a GM I'm ALWAYS the final authority on what is or is not allowed. We can discuss it certainly, I will always let players make their case, but in my games, the DM is GOD, what I say... goes.
Min maxing and power gaming/building has NOTHING to do with how you play.
Power gaming is definitionally about how you play, but doesn't actually have a lot to do with min maxing (true power gamers don't use point buy, they roll 4k3 and if it's not good enough they come up with an excuse to try again).
What you call "objectively bad design" some prefer. Not me personally. But some do. Many still play earlier editions or variations on them that use descending AC. Because they prefer this. Short of your showing us your game design credentials you aren't going to convince me yours is a head wiser than those who first developed the game least of all than those of those whose who prefer it. Your subjective view is not objective reality.
I mean, I could say "I'm an award-winning game designer"*, but:
I'm not going to give out enough identifying information to verify it (or not) just to win an argument on the internet
It would just be trying to play "argument from authority". If my points are valid, they're valid regardless of my credentials or lack thereof. Game design isn't a field like medicine, with large bodies of specialized training.
That said, it's not purely subjective. The question "what does this mechanic want to achieve, and does it do so?" is often answerable.
Upside-down AC:
Has no reason within the greater design to be that way. Lookup tables don't care. The THAC0 calculation was retrofitted to the extant system, and could be made to work in any linear system.
Runs in opposition to the natural human tendency (AFAIK cross-cultural) that higher numbers mean more of the thing.
Runs in opposition to the game's magic item system. +1 armor means your AC goes down
When you ask people to do subtraction or work with negative numbers, you increase the chances of error. Subtracting negative numbers is confusing to people with little math training, such as kids. Some people are just bad at math. Dyscalculia is a thing that exists.
So, it's all downsides and no upsides.
None of this means that people can't play the game and enjoy it. Design flaws are obstacles to enjoyment, but one can have fun despite them. (To be clear: AC is a minor irritation compared to a lot of old D&D's problems. It's just the one with no arguable redeeming features.) In social games like RPGs, in particular, a good group can be dominant over all sorts of flaws, and a good GM can paper over a good many of them on the fly. The fun is legitimate. It just could have been better-facilitated.
To bring this slightly back on topic, while a GM can customize, homebrew, and tinker with the published backgrounds to facilitate their players' role-playing desires, they should have support in the book for it.
I have not been defending rolling 3d6 in order "once and only once." I stated early on that I have my players roll four sets of numbers and choose from these.
I have to say, I'm not sure why you jumped in to defend something else when people were criticizing down-the-line once, then.
* I am, in fact, an award-winning game designer. But see above.
What you call "objectively bad design" some prefer. Not me personally. But some do. Many still play earlier editions or variations on them that use descending AC. Because they prefer this. Short of your showing us your game design credentials you aren't going to convince me yours is a head wiser than those who first developed the game least of all than those of those whose who prefer it. Your subjective view is not objective reality.
There is absolutely no question that Monte Cook and Tweet Williams had more RPG experience than the original designers of D&D, for the simple reason that it wasn't possible to have more than a couple of years experience at the time original D&D was written, and moving D&D to a 'roll and add vs a target number' wasn't a new thing they came up with, it's a thing people had been experimenting with in other game systems for years. It really comes down to the types of math humans do easily, and how human intuition works.
First, the way THAC0 is computed is unintuitive, because bonuses are inverted: a +2 magic weapon is actually -2 THAC0. This isn't actually hard math... but it's opposite to people's intuition for how things should work. The same applies to armor bonuses. In 3.0 and above, +x really is addition.
Secondly, THAC0 requires you to do subtraction, and often results in dealing with negative numbers. For example, if you're attacking a target with unknown AC
In AD&D2e, you start with your THAC0, and subtract 1d20 -- i.e. if you have a THAC0 of 10 and you roll an 11, you hit an AC of (10 - 11) = -1.
In D&D 3e, you start with your attack bonus, and add 1d20 -- i.e. if you have an attack bonus of +10 and you roll an 11, you hit an AC of (10+11) = 21.
To a computer, these are both the same number of operations, but humans are (a) worse at subtraction than addition, and (b) don't handle negative numbers well.
Regarding upside-down AC (and many, many other completely arbitrary and inconsistent mechanics like determining surprise) from older versions:
The use of the standard d20 mechanic (and ascending AC) are HUGE, HUGE improvements both for consistency and ease of getting into the game. I played 1E from 1981 through 2014. I still love a lot about the older edition(s) of the game. But the weird, ad-hoc dice and number mechanics always bugged me and could make it hard to feel like you were running a fair, consistent game. High always being better or more difficult makes for much smoother game play.
What you call "objectively bad design" some prefer. Not me personally. But some do. Many still play earlier editions or variations on them that use descending AC. Because they prefer this. Short of your showing us your game design credentials you aren't going to convince me yours is a head wiser than those who first developed the game least of all than those of those whose who prefer it. Your subjective view is not objective reality.
There is absolutely no question that Monte Cook and Tweet Williams had more RPG experience than the original designers of D&D, for the simple reason that it wasn't possible to have more than a couple of years experience at the time original D&D was written, and moving D&D to a 'roll and add vs a target number' wasn't a new thing they came up with, it's a thing people had been experimenting with in other game systems for years. It really comes down to the types of math humans do easily, and how human intuition works.
First, the way THAC0 is computed is unintuitive, because bonuses are inverted: a +2 magic weapon is actually -2 THAC0. This isn't actually hard math... but it's opposite to people's intuition for how things should work. The same applies to armor bonuses. In 3.0 and above, +x really is addition.
Secondly, THAC0 requires you to do subtraction, and often results in dealing with negative numbers. For example, if you're attacking a target with unknown AC
In AD&D2e, you start with your THAC0, and subtract 1d20 -- i.e. if you have a THAC0 of 10 and you roll an 11, you hit an AC of (10 - 11) = -1.
In D&D 3e, you start with your attack bonus, and add 1d20 -- i.e. if you have an attack bonus of +10 and you roll an 11, you hit an AC of (10+11) = 21.
To a computer, these are both the same number of operations, but humans are (a) worse at subtraction than addition, and (b) don't handle negative numbers well.
You also have to understand that Gygax went on record to say that Descending Armor Class and THAC0 where both mistakes and he wanted to change them for 1st edition AD&D but felt it would be confusing to the existing audience which at the time was still quite tiny. He had no idea that the audience would be 2 million people by the time he released 1st edition AD&D rules. People before the 80's knew these were junk designs and the only reason they survived all the way to 2nd edition is because TSR without Gygax was unwilling to take any risks with the game system and wanted everything backwards compatible.
If Gygax created 2nd edition AD&D, we wouldn't have classes, his plan would have been for everything to be point buy and he has gone on record with that.
Gygax was actually the last true designer of D&D with any spunk willing to make significant changes to the game, ever since then with the exception of 4e, the owners of D&D have been playing it safe and because of 4e, they probably always will.
What you call "objectively bad design" some prefer. Not me personally. But some do. Many still play earlier editions or variations on them that use descending AC. Because they prefer this. Short of your showing us your game design credentials you aren't going to convince me yours is a head wiser than those who first developed the game least of all than those of those whose who prefer it. Your subjective view is not objective reality.
There is absolutely no question that Monte Cook and Tweet Williams had more RPG experience than the original designers of D&D, for the simple reason that it wasn't possible to have more than a couple of years experience at the time original D&D was written, and moving D&D to a 'roll and add vs a target number' wasn't a new thing they came up with, it's a thing people had been experimenting with in other game systems for years. It really comes down to the types of math humans do easily, and how human intuition works.
First, the way THAC0 is computed is unintuitive, because bonuses are inverted: a +2 magic weapon is actually -2 THAC0. This isn't actually hard math... but it's opposite to people's intuition for how things should work. The same applies to armor bonuses. In 3.0 and above, +x really is addition.
Secondly, THAC0 requires you to do subtraction, and often results in dealing with negative numbers. For example, if you're attacking a target with unknown AC
In AD&D2e, you start with your THAC0, and subtract 1d20 -- i.e. if you have a THAC0 of 10 and you roll an 11, you hit an AC of (10 - 11) = -1.
In D&D 3e, you start with your attack bonus, and add 1d20 -- i.e. if you have an attack bonus of +10 and you roll an 11, you hit an AC of (10+11) = 21.
To a computer, these are both the same number of operations, but humans are (a) worse at subtraction than addition, and (b) don't handle negative numbers well.
You also have to understand that Gygax went on record to say that Descending Armor Class and THAC0 where both mistakes and he wanted to change them for 1st edition AD&D but felt it would be confusing to the existing audience which at the time was still quite tiny. He had no idea that the audience would be 2 million people by the time he released 1st edition AD&D rules. People before the 80's knew these were junk designs and the only reason they survived all the way to 2nd edition is because TSR without Gygax was unwilling to take any risks with the game system and wanted everything backwards compatible.
If Gygax created 2nd edition AD&D, we wouldn't have classes, his plan would have been for everything to be point buy and he has gone on record with that.
Gygax was actually the last true designer of D&D with any spunk willing to make significant changes to the game, ever since then with the exception of 4e, the owners of D&D have been playing it safe and because of 4e, they probably always will.
Even though he got sued over it, unjustly i might add Dangerous Journeys might show what he would have done without the legacy of basic/OD&D. It had its flaws as well but I really enjoyed the system.
It’s a short article but if you don’t want to click the link, the TLDR is that roleplaying does not preclude optimization and optimization does not preclude roleplaying despite the contingent of those rude people who feel the need to tell others they are doing it wrong.
And yet, my lived experience is that the vast majority of players I've been in campaigns with who have focused on build optimization had no time for the role-playing aspect of the campaign, and were basically only there to see how much damage they could do in a round. Their backstories were just there to provide story hooks to lead to the next combat (in which they would naturally be the main character, although I'm not making that connection)
And yet my lived experience is that the people who don't optimize role play the least, the have no investment in the character or game and are only there to play the goofball disruptive person.
That's funny. Because there are entire games that discourage the min max mindset and that inspired by what were much simpler times are wholly character and story focused. As for disruptive: One of the many reasons min maxing is disallowed at many tables is because those with the min max mindset tend to be awfully disruptive. So mired in the rules are they that have allowed them to "build" their characters they often interrupt a DM who has ruled something independent of what the rules say.
It was nice that the most obnoxious players decided to self segregate like that.
That's funny. Because the min maxers in this thread their response to simply having it explained to them why some tables don't allow it has been to obnoxiously trash any other way to play. To call this or that set of numbers "unplayable." To say this or that method of generating stats is "awful."
That's obnoxious.
What about players who wish to play visually impaired characters and who are prepared to roll at Disadvantage for any action requiring vision to reflect this?
What about those who wish to play characters who have some kind of physical impediment or chronic illness and so they are prepared to have a low DEX or CON to reflect this? To play characters who aren't in their prime and who might have low numbers in what are "non-dump stats"?
What would you call players who would never do that? Who would never play such characters? Ableist and ageist perhaps?
I'd say you're segregating yourselves from those of us care more about characterization and story by showing you see the blind or those with any physical impediment or the elderly as "unplayable."
Curiously enough, many of the greatest characters in DnD have very pronounced disabilities, whether they be Raistlin (ill health), Drizzt (day blind), or Elminster (old age).
Their disabilities make them distinct.
Tell me what makes your character distinctive. I’m not asking what magic items they have. I’m not asking what is on their character sheet. What makes them distinctive from thousands of other characters who have the same race, class, and feats. If the only answer you can give is something mechanical (e.g. attributes), then I question how much actual roleplaying (as opposed to roll playing) you are actually doing. Same thing if all you can mention is bits of trivia (e.g. they grew up in city X) which has no significance to how you are role playing your character).
Which is NOT to say anything about badwrongfun. Some players aren’t into role playing and that’s totally fine. They should do what they find is fun.
Curiously enough, many of the greatest characters in DnD have very pronounced disabilities, whether they be Raistlin (ill health), Drizzt (day blind), or Elminster (old age).
Their disabilities make them distinct.
Tell me what makes your character distinctive. I’m not asking what magic items they have. I’m not asking what is on their character sheet. What makes them distinctive from thousands of other characters who have the same race, class, and feats. If the only answer you can give is something mechanical (e.g. attributes), then I question how much actual roleplaying (as opposed to roll playing) you are actually doing. Same thing if all you can mention is bits of trivia (e.g. they grew up in city X) which has no significance to how you are role playing your character).
Which is NOT to say anything about badwrongfun. Some players aren’t into role playing and that’s totally fine. They should do what they find is fun.
That's very shortsighted. All my players usually have disabilities that are purely role playing traits and not physical character related stats. I've had lots of characters that self impose negative qualities, like crippling fears or unwillingness to see something for what it really is because they just don't believe in those things. Some may have neurotic attachments or personality quirks that render them socially inept in situations regardless of their charisma.
Curiously enough, many of the greatest characters in DnD have very pronounced disabilities, whether they be Raistlin (ill health), Drizzt (day blind), or Elminster (old age).
Their disabilities make them distinct.
Tell me what makes your character distinctive. I’m not asking what magic items they have. I’m not asking what is on their character sheet. What makes them distinctive from thousands of other characters who have the same race, class, and feats. If the only answer you can give is something mechanical (e.g. attributes), then I question how much actual roleplaying (as opposed to roll playing) you are actually doing. Same thing if all you can mention is bits of trivia (e.g. they grew up in city X) which has no significance to how you are role playing your character).
Which is NOT to say anything about badwrongfun. Some players aren’t into role playing and that’s totally fine. They should do what they find is fun.
Being a fighter with 12 Str or a wizard with 12 Int doesn’t make a character distinctive though. I am currently playing two different warlocks in two different campaigns and they are nothing like each other even though their stats are virtually identical—one is a martial lock so has a high Str and the other is a caster lock so has a high Cha. Wanting my martial lock to be good at hitting things so giving him stats to do that and wanting my caster lock to be good at spell casting so giving her stats to do that has no bearing on how I make decisions with them, their goals, why they adventure or any of the aspects of their personalities that make them who they are.
One is a dwarf who was a crappy archaelogist, an embarrassment to his family and community until he came across his genie’s vessel and made his bargain. The other is an urchin half elf who had a nice middle class family in Waterdeep until she fell into the bay and made a deal with an aboleth so as not to drown. The dwarf wants to find adventure to prove himself to his clan and finally be successful like his siblings. The half elf wants to destroy her family and the bard college they run because they rejected her after she became a creepy warlock along with the aboleth’s evil influence. I could go on but hopefully you’re getting the point that these two characters are not very similar at all despite their very similar stats. And I have plenty of other characters who are all people with families, histories, motivations, goals, likes and dislikes, etc. They are complete personalities that are distinct from each other regardless of how similarly I tend to distribute stats as an unabashed min/maxer.
Your character being shit at their role in the group is not an interesting personality trait, it’s a nuisance that you are loading up on your team members to overcome in addition to the normal challenges they face from the DM as effective characters. Unless of course, everyone is in and the DM tunes the game to accommodate everyone’s fun. And that’s the rub: min/maxers are not automatically problematic nor are their detractors, whoever the odd man out is, the one who wants something different from the rest of the people at the table.
I have to say, I'm not sure why you jumped in to defend something else when people were criticizing down-the-line once, then.
* I am, in fact, an award-winning game designer. But see above.
I don't see the word "once" appear once in that post.
I started with the Mentzer red box. My friends and I wouldn't just roll 4 11 3 6 6 8 and be like Well that's it that's who my character is for this new campaign nothing I can do about it the dice have spoken. We would roll another set. We would typically let a player do so until those ability scores in the "average" range (9-12) were not outnumbered by those between 3 and 8. A more generous DM among us might even allow a player to roll different sets until they had at least one ability score equal to or greater than 13. Perhaps you played with stricter DMs and for that I am eternally sorry. But don't blame a method that randomly generates ability scores to bring about more variation in characters of any given class for your grievances.
It's important to remember the bonuses and penalties did not progress the same as they do now. As someone else said when you showed you would pack up your things and go home if you had to have a fighter with a CON of 6 that was a mere -1. So what? Do you hate playing with an ability score that is going to incur a penalty unless it is in a "dump stat"? Because that attitude produces what someone else in this thread described as cookie cutter characters.
Like I said: a fighter who does not have optimal CON is a veteran or a fighter with a condition and either is good fodder for a good story to tell.
I can think of little that could be more dull and repetitive than playing two fighters in two ongoing parallel campaigns whose ability scores are practically identical in their distribution. I would sooner play one that has a good STR and one that has a good CON and have any other high ability score if one at all be anything but the other. Because I care more about allowing the numbers to stir my imagination and wonder at why one of those fighters might be exceptionally smart and the other charismatic than I do trying to "beat" the game system. Players can play that way if you wish. No one is going to stop you. But your persistent inability to understand why many disapprove of it or will not allow it at their tables is wearing my patience thin.
We have a "natural tendency" to see higher numbers as better? How things are ranked in most cultures with 1 being the absolute best and anything less of less value would beg to differ. Your failure to see this and the absurd claim the math was so complex when there were kids of elementary or primary school age playing with little to no trouble means I am far from convinced when you say you are an award-winning game designer. This is the internet. The claim on its own is meaningless. You knew that much but made it anyway.
Ascending AC is much more intuitive. I would not go back to descending AC unless I were playing a for purposes of nostalgia. Ascending AC also brings combat into line with how everything else is managed in what has been the fundamental game system since 3rd. Edition. Instead of having a game of different ones cobbled together. But then this was the charm of B/X. Why it is the most popular game to hack. It was so easy to drop one and replace it with another. Try replacing how magic is done in 5th. Edition with something as innovate as level-less spells. The core mechanic is a thing of beauty. But the rules bloat makes the game so unwieldy and more difficult to hack.
Curiously enough, many of the greatest characters in DnD have very pronounced disabilities, whether they be Raistlin (ill health), Drizzt (day blind), or Elminster (old age).
I wouldn't call those pronounced for either Drizz't or Elminster; while I haven't read every word of D&D fiction or even close, I don't remember their disabilities being a significant factor in the novels (Raistlin's disabilities were in fact plot-relevant in the Dragonlance novels).
What you call "objectively bad design" some prefer. Not me personally. But some do. Many still play earlier editions or variations on them that use descending AC. Because they prefer this. Short of your showing us your game design credentials you aren't going to convince me yours is a head wiser than those who first developed the game least of all than those of those whose who prefer it. Your subjective view is not objective reality.
There is absolutely no question that Monte Cook and Tweet Williams had more RPG experience than the original designers of D&D, for the simple reason that it wasn't possible to have more than a couple of years experience at the time original D&D was written, and moving D&D to a 'roll and add vs a target number' wasn't a new thing they came up with, it's a thing people had been experimenting with in other game systems for years. It really comes down to the types of math humans do easily, and how human intuition works.
First, the way THAC0 is computed is unintuitive, because bonuses are inverted: a +2 magic weapon is actually -2 THAC0. This isn't actually hard math... but it's opposite to people's intuition for how things should work. The same applies to armor bonuses. In 3.0 and above, +x really is addition.
Secondly, THAC0 requires you to do subtraction, and often results in dealing with negative numbers. For example, if you're attacking a target with unknown AC
In AD&D2e, you start with your THAC0, and subtract 1d20 -- i.e. if you have a THAC0 of 10 and you roll an 11, you hit an AC of (10 - 11) = -1.
In D&D 3e, you start with your attack bonus, and add 1d20 -- i.e. if you have an attack bonus of +10 and you roll an 11, you hit an AC of (10+11) = 21.
To a computer, these are both the same number of operations, but humans are (a) worse at subtraction than addition, and (b) don't handle negative numbers well.
I have said it wasn't as intuitive as ascending AC. And done so more than once. The math however was so simple children could pick up the game and play. I won't be as harsh as someone else who said those who struggle to wrap their heads around THAC0 are "dum" but neither would I trust them to do my taxes.
You also have to understand that Gygax went on record to say that Descending Armor Class and THAC0 where both mistakes and he wanted to change them for 1st edition AD&D but felt it would be confusing to the existing audience which at the time was still quite tiny. He had no idea that the audience would be 2 million people by the time he released 1st edition AD&D rules. People before the 80's knew these were junk designs and the only reason they survived all the way to 2nd edition is because TSR without Gygax was unwilling to take any risks with the game system and wanted everything backwards compatible.
If Gygax created 2nd edition AD&D, we wouldn't have classes, his plan would have been for everything to be point buy and he has gone on record with that.
Gygax was actually the last true designer of D&D with any spunk willing to make significant changes to the game, ever since then with the exception of 4e, the owners of D&D have been playing it safe and because of 4e, they probably always will.
Gary produced work for Troll Lord Games and said on a number of occasions that their Castles & Crusades is what later editions of D&D might have looked like had he remained at TSR.
C&C uses ascending AC. Classes remain however.
Curiously ability scores are generated using 3d6. Only the player gets to assign the results however he or she wishes.
I have said it wasn't as intuitive as ascending AC. And done so more than once. The math however was so simple children could pick up the game and play. I won't be as harsh as someone else who said those who struggle to wrap their heads around THAC0 are "dum" but neither would I trust them to do my taxes.
Anyone with a grade school education should be able to do the math for THAC0, but that doesn't mean it's the same amount of mental effort as 3e attack rolls, and the goal for mechanics isn't just "can be done", it's "can be done trivially"; games may require math, but you want it to disappear into the background as much as possible.
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Funnily enough, with 2024 rules, starting with 20 in your main score could actually be detrimental for feats, unless each feat you take has a second ability score that can be put into one of your other scores or the feats you want to take don't benefit your mainscore. On the other hand, it would reward a player that got to 20 at first level with the choice to pick feats they normally wouldn't take as their main ability wouldn't benefit from it.
There is one clear difference between old school D&D and modern D&D, a distinction that even in the old school D&D days didn't last very long and was really only prevalent in B/X games mostly. Even in AD&D games this really wasn't the case.
That distinction is the difference between generating characters and creating characters.
In B/X you generated a character. You rolled 3d6 down the chain, those results would define what your options are. Classes had minimum requirements so based on those rolls from the selection of seven classes would reduce your choices on average to 3-4. You picked your class and that was it, there were no other choices, selections or options. The only decision you actually made during character generation was which class you played. That was the whole shebang.
AD&D introduced character creation. 3d6 was not an optional method of ability score generation. The idea behind all of the methods is that you would have a wide selection of scores typically or decent scores that would allow you to make the next set of character creation choices. Race, class, decisions like wether to multi-class or not. Grant it the line between generation and creation was a bit blurry still, but it was definitely closer to creation then generation.
In either case this principle idea espoused by a lot of my fellow OSR gamers that players in the old school days were fond or or even commonly "generated" characters is completely false, it was as rare then as it is today. Players wanted options, they came to the table with "I want to play X race, Y Class" and concepts like "I'm going to make (build) a character that specializes in X or Y. With expanded splat books you picked Weapon Proficiencies and Non-Weapon proficiencies. etc....
Building characters was as much a thing in old school days as it is today. The only difference today is how many options you have and certainly the default ability score method really doesn't eliminate any options, you can basically make any sort of character you want with any method of ability score generation, even 4d6 since its not down the chain, allows for this flexibility as almost all classes are based on a single ability score which you are certainly going to get at least one decent one doing 6x4d6.
Morale of the story, not a bloody thing has changed since 1e. Yes there was that one exception B/X and BECMI where character creation wasn't a thing (it was character generation) but anyone who actually played D&D back then knows full well that the basic culture of D&D was unanimously that AD&D was the game for big kids and B/X for the little kids and newbies. There are far more people playing B/X, BECMI and clones of these games today than there ever were in the 80's.
I'm a OSR die hard, I love old school games, I love a good classic stiff and bad ass game of AD&D so much so that I still play it today, but lets not re-write history here.
It was nice that the most obnoxious players decided to self segregate like that.
Min maxing and power gaming/building has NOTHING to do with how you play. At all. If you are going to be a jerk, you will be regardless of how you make your character. As a full tier no shame power gamer, I build characters the way I WANT them to be, and what I want them to do. My goal isnt to stop other players from engaging in aspects I might not be excited about, and would never stop them doing so, but for those aspects I enjoy most I want to be as efficient as possible, as effective as possible. I often find this allows others to feel free to make less rules efficient characters if they want because there is more slack...cause someone else is picking up that load. I think this whole min max is bad mentality is just silly. Then again i am an engineer so maybe that has something to do with it..lol.
Almost fully agree. I do think there are limits when it comes to the balance of the game itself. For example as a GM, I know that my players have certain expectations from me for those times when the game lets them down or times when the game mechanic, spell or ability are disruptive or break the tone or story Im trying to create. Any gaming system is going to have blatantly broken elements that were overlooked during testing or things that weren't particularly well thought out. This is normal, in fact, I would say with 100% certainty that no one has ever created an RPG that did have something blatantly broken in it, at least not in the 35+ years I have been playing RPGs. In those cases, I think its perfectly reasonable for GM to say "ok, you found something that is clearly broken" and shut it down by house ruling it or eliminating it.
I have done it many times, in every version of this game (D&D) and I'm 100% sure its only a matter of time before one of my players (guys just like you) will find something I'm going to alter or eliminate in this next edition. I don't think there is anything wrong with power gamers and people optimizing, in fact, I encourage it, go nuts, but as a GM I'm ALWAYS the final authority on what is or is not allowed. We can discuss it certainly, I will always let players make their case, but in my games, the DM is GOD, what I say... goes.
Power gaming is definitionally about how you play, but doesn't actually have a lot to do with min maxing (true power gamers don't use point buy, they roll 4k3 and if it's not good enough they come up with an excuse to try again).
I mean, I could say "I'm an award-winning game designer"*, but:
That said, it's not purely subjective. The question "what does this mechanic want to achieve, and does it do so?" is often answerable.
Upside-down AC:
So, it's all downsides and no upsides.
None of this means that people can't play the game and enjoy it. Design flaws are obstacles to enjoyment, but one can have fun despite them. (To be clear: AC is a minor irritation compared to a lot of old D&D's problems. It's just the one with no arguable redeeming features.) In social games like RPGs, in particular, a good group can be dominant over all sorts of flaws, and a good GM can paper over a good many of them on the fly. The fun is legitimate. It just could have been better-facilitated.
To bring this slightly back on topic, while a GM can customize, homebrew, and tinker with the published backgrounds to facilitate their players' role-playing desires, they should have support in the book for it.
I have to say, I'm not sure why you jumped in to defend something else when people were criticizing down-the-line once, then.
* I am, in fact, an award-winning game designer. But see above.
There is absolutely no question that Monte Cook and Tweet Williams had more RPG experience than the original designers of D&D, for the simple reason that it wasn't possible to have more than a couple of years experience at the time original D&D was written, and moving D&D to a 'roll and add vs a target number' wasn't a new thing they came up with, it's a thing people had been experimenting with in other game systems for years. It really comes down to the types of math humans do easily, and how human intuition works.
First, the way THAC0 is computed is unintuitive, because bonuses are inverted: a +2 magic weapon is actually -2 THAC0. This isn't actually hard math... but it's opposite to people's intuition for how things should work. The same applies to armor bonuses. In 3.0 and above, +x really is addition.
Secondly, THAC0 requires you to do subtraction, and often results in dealing with negative numbers. For example, if you're attacking a target with unknown AC
To a computer, these are both the same number of operations, but humans are (a) worse at subtraction than addition, and (b) don't handle negative numbers well.
Regarding upside-down AC (and many, many other completely arbitrary and inconsistent mechanics like determining surprise) from older versions:
The use of the standard d20 mechanic (and ascending AC) are HUGE, HUGE improvements both for consistency and ease of getting into the game. I played 1E from 1981 through 2014. I still love a lot about the older edition(s) of the game. But the weird, ad-hoc dice and number mechanics always bugged me and could make it hard to feel like you were running a fair, consistent game. High always being better or more difficult makes for much smoother game play.
You also have to understand that Gygax went on record to say that Descending Armor Class and THAC0 where both mistakes and he wanted to change them for 1st edition AD&D but felt it would be confusing to the existing audience which at the time was still quite tiny. He had no idea that the audience would be 2 million people by the time he released 1st edition AD&D rules. People before the 80's knew these were junk designs and the only reason they survived all the way to 2nd edition is because TSR without Gygax was unwilling to take any risks with the game system and wanted everything backwards compatible.
If Gygax created 2nd edition AD&D, we wouldn't have classes, his plan would have been for everything to be point buy and he has gone on record with that.
Gygax was actually the last true designer of D&D with any spunk willing to make significant changes to the game, ever since then with the exception of 4e, the owners of D&D have been playing it safe and because of 4e, they probably always will.
Even though he got sued over it, unjustly i might add Dangerous Journeys might show what he would have done without the legacy of basic/OD&D. It had its flaws as well but I really enjoyed the system.
That's funny. Because the min maxers in this thread their response to simply having it explained to them why some tables don't allow it has been to obnoxiously trash any other way to play. To call this or that set of numbers "unplayable." To say this or that method of generating stats is "awful."
That's obnoxious.
What about players who wish to play visually impaired characters and who are prepared to roll at Disadvantage for any action requiring vision to reflect this?
What about those who wish to play characters who have some kind of physical impediment or chronic illness and so they are prepared to have a low DEX or CON to reflect this? To play characters who aren't in their prime and who might have low numbers in what are "non-dump stats"?
What would you call players who would never do that? Who would never play such characters? Ableist and ageist perhaps?
I'd say you're segregating yourselves from those of us care more about characterization and story by showing you see the blind or those with any physical impediment or the elderly as "unplayable."
Curiously enough, many of the greatest characters in DnD have very pronounced disabilities, whether they be Raistlin (ill health), Drizzt (day blind), or Elminster (old age).
Their disabilities make them distinct.
Tell me what makes your character distinctive. I’m not asking what magic items they have. I’m not asking what is on their character sheet. What makes them distinctive from thousands of other characters who have the same race, class, and feats. If the only answer you can give is something mechanical (e.g. attributes), then I question how much actual roleplaying (as opposed to roll playing) you are actually doing. Same thing if all you can mention is bits of trivia (e.g. they grew up in city X) which has no significance to how you are role playing your character).
Which is NOT to say anything about badwrongfun. Some players aren’t into role playing and that’s totally fine. They should do what they find is fun.
That's very shortsighted. All my players usually have disabilities that are purely role playing traits and not physical character related stats. I've had lots of characters that self impose negative qualities, like crippling fears or unwillingness to see something for what it really is because they just don't believe in those things. Some may have neurotic attachments or personality quirks that render them socially inept in situations regardless of their charisma.
Being a fighter with 12 Str or a wizard with 12 Int doesn’t make a character distinctive though. I am currently playing two different warlocks in two different campaigns and they are nothing like each other even though their stats are virtually identical—one is a martial lock so has a high Str and the other is a caster lock so has a high Cha. Wanting my martial lock to be good at hitting things so giving him stats to do that and wanting my caster lock to be good at spell casting so giving her stats to do that has no bearing on how I make decisions with them, their goals, why they adventure or any of the aspects of their personalities that make them who they are.
One is a dwarf who was a crappy archaelogist, an embarrassment to his family and community until he came across his genie’s vessel and made his bargain. The other is an urchin half elf who had a nice middle class family in Waterdeep until she fell into the bay and made a deal with an aboleth so as not to drown. The dwarf wants to find adventure to prove himself to his clan and finally be successful like his siblings. The half elf wants to destroy her family and the bard college they run because they rejected her after she became a creepy warlock along with the aboleth’s evil influence. I could go on but hopefully you’re getting the point that these two characters are not very similar at all despite their very similar stats. And I have plenty of other characters who are all people with families, histories, motivations, goals, likes and dislikes, etc. They are complete personalities that are distinct from each other regardless of how similarly I tend to distribute stats as an unabashed min/maxer.
Your character being shit at their role in the group is not an interesting personality trait, it’s a nuisance that you are loading up on your team members to overcome in addition to the normal challenges they face from the DM as effective characters. Unless of course, everyone is in and the DM tunes the game to accommodate everyone’s fun. And that’s the rub: min/maxers are not automatically problematic nor are their detractors, whoever the odd man out is, the one who wants something different from the rest of the people at the table.
I don't see the word "once" appear once in that post.
I started with the Mentzer red box. My friends and I wouldn't just roll 4 11 3 6 6 8 and be like Well that's it that's who my character is for this new campaign nothing I can do about it the dice have spoken. We would roll another set. We would typically let a player do so until those ability scores in the "average" range (9-12) were not outnumbered by those between 3 and 8. A more generous DM among us might even allow a player to roll different sets until they had at least one ability score equal to or greater than 13. Perhaps you played with stricter DMs and for that I am eternally sorry. But don't blame a method that randomly generates ability scores to bring about more variation in characters of any given class for your grievances.
It's important to remember the bonuses and penalties did not progress the same as they do now. As someone else said when you showed you would pack up your things and go home if you had to have a fighter with a CON of 6 that was a mere -1. So what? Do you hate playing with an ability score that is going to incur a penalty unless it is in a "dump stat"? Because that attitude produces what someone else in this thread described as cookie cutter characters.
Like I said: a fighter who does not have optimal CON is a veteran or a fighter with a condition and either is good fodder for a good story to tell.
I can think of little that could be more dull and repetitive than playing two fighters in two ongoing parallel campaigns whose ability scores are practically identical in their distribution. I would sooner play one that has a good STR and one that has a good CON and have any other high ability score if one at all be anything but the other. Because I care more about allowing the numbers to stir my imagination and wonder at why one of those fighters might be exceptionally smart and the other charismatic than I do trying to "beat" the game system. Players can play that way if you wish. No one is going to stop you. But your persistent inability to understand why many disapprove of it or will not allow it at their tables is wearing my patience thin.
We have a "natural tendency" to see higher numbers as better? How things are ranked in most cultures with 1 being the absolute best and anything less of less value would beg to differ. Your failure to see this and the absurd claim the math was so complex when there were kids of elementary or primary school age playing with little to no trouble means I am far from convinced when you say you are an award-winning game designer. This is the internet. The claim on its own is meaningless. You knew that much but made it anyway.
Ascending AC is much more intuitive. I would not go back to descending AC unless I were playing a for purposes of nostalgia. Ascending AC also brings combat into line with how everything else is managed in what has been the fundamental game system since 3rd. Edition. Instead of having a game of different ones cobbled together. But then this was the charm of B/X. Why it is the most popular game to hack. It was so easy to drop one and replace it with another. Try replacing how magic is done in 5th. Edition with something as innovate as level-less spells. The core mechanic is a thing of beauty. But the rules bloat makes the game so unwieldy and more difficult to hack.
I wouldn't call those pronounced for either Drizz't or Elminster; while I haven't read every word of D&D fiction or even close, I don't remember their disabilities being a significant factor in the novels (Raistlin's disabilities were in fact plot-relevant in the Dragonlance novels).
I have said it wasn't as intuitive as ascending AC. And done so more than once. The math however was so simple children could pick up the game and play. I won't be as harsh as someone else who said those who struggle to wrap their heads around THAC0 are "dum" but neither would I trust them to do my taxes.
Gary produced work for Troll Lord Games and said on a number of occasions that their Castles & Crusades is what later editions of D&D might have looked like had he remained at TSR.
C&C uses ascending AC. Classes remain however.
Curiously ability scores are generated using 3d6. Only the player gets to assign the results however he or she wishes.
Anyone with a grade school education should be able to do the math for THAC0, but that doesn't mean it's the same amount of mental effort as 3e attack rolls, and the goal for mechanics isn't just "can be done", it's "can be done trivially"; games may require math, but you want it to disappear into the background as much as possible.