So, I play in one 4E group and I DM another 4E group. Only two other players are in both groups, and over the course of the last year or so there’s always been references to previous D&D editions. Come to find out, only one other person had played first edition D&D in some form. So I decided to put together a night of BASIC D&D, old school, the way it was pretty much originally played.
Original White Book
For those who are hardcore or history buffs, the White Box is actually the first incarnation of D&D, and went through 3 printings (by my last count). In the late 70′s the magenta BASIC D&D box hit the shelves, and this is the version we were going to play.
Basic D&D Box
For the module, I decided to pick a classic module which I owned but had never actually run for any group. Palace of the Silver Princess! It actually can be found in two forms. The Tournament module, and the DM tutorial module which runs the first three rooms of the module like a pick a path book. I owned the latter, so I went with it.
I had 8 players, all level 1, which is fine because Palace of the Silver Princess is designed for 6-10 characters levels 1-3. Which is a big change from 4E module design, and something which caught the players notice.
The first difference players noticed was in rolling up characters. We went “by the book”. Players roll 3D6 for stats, some of my players had NEVER rolled for attributes, having been raised on Point Buy systems. Secondly, stats are rolled straight down the line!!! Meaning your first roll is Strength, second roll is Intelligence, and so forth!!!! You should have seen the looks on their faces. Fortunately nobody rolled anything horrible, however nobody rolled an 18 either. I think we had one 17 and it was a fighter who rolled it for Con.
The next thing they noticed was they chose their class based on their stats. This was totally backwards to how they are used to doing things. That’s because with newer versions you decide what you want to play and make your stats to fit. In Basic D&D your stats, rolled first, determine what you can play. In some cases you simply can’t play a certain class, which usually pertain to the racial classes. By that, I mean, Elf, Dwarf, & Halfling are classes! You aren’t an Elven fighter, you are simply an Elf. The Elf class combines a little fighting with a little magic. The human classes are the pillar four, Fighter, Thief, Magic-User, & Cleric. In our group, we had a nice spread, 2 Thieves, 1 Magic-User, 1 Cleric, 1 Elf, 1 Halfling, 1 Dwarf, & 1 Fighter.
After choosing their classes, they all rolled 3d6 x10 for starting Gold. Which is standard and they bought their equipment. For those who don’t know, thieves can use ANY weapon!!! Imagine that? And Magic Users can only use daggers! Not even a staff. Clerics likewise can only use bludgeoning weapons. So there were a few raised eyebrows over those weapon choices. Likewise, there are only 3 swords, short sword, normal sword, and two-handed sword.
Module B3
After buying equipment I informed them of their prime attributes and how this will affect their XP. For those who may have read my previous post about XP, first edition classes have separate xp tracks. For example, it takes 1,250 XP for a thief to hit level 2, while it takes 4,000 Xp for an Elf. If your Prime Requisite Attribute is 13-15 you also get a 5% bonus to all XP earned. If you have a 16 or greater you get +10% XP. Since this was a one-shot deal I wanted them to experience the level differences. So I was awarding 400XP per hour. At this rate they found it sort of mind-boggling that thieves would be level 3 before the Elf even hit level 2! Such is life in first edition.
The game went well, they learned that compared to 4E where you may make it through 3-4 encounters in a night, they were able to go through 20 plus encounters in a session; exploring about 35 rooms in the dungeon! BIG DIFFERENCE! Secondly, they learned the speed of combat. Initiative is very simple, the DM rolls a D6, one party member rolls a D6 for the party. The side with the highest roll goes first! If there is a tie, its simultaneous! To go along with that, individual actions are always simultaneous. Each player tells the DM what their character will do in the round, and then they all roll at the same time. Some lessons learned, were that 7 people can’t melee a large rat in a closet without getting in each others way. They learned that firing arrows at monsters who have allies attacking in melee can be dangerous to allies! No deaths, but several halfling sized arrows kept pinging off tanks armor. They learned that casting spells require spell casters to stand perfectly still; and lastly, they learned that it’s often better to over commit to a mob rather than fan out evenly and risk not killing any of them. They also learned that there are NO MINI’s!!! Holy cow! They were surprised that first edition didn’t operate with mini’s and tactical movement! They could map their dungeon, but mini’s didn’t serve any tactical purpose at all! Instead it was done by description and by the DMing telling them where they were.
This made it quite the exercise in improvisation and creativity. Unlike 4E where actions are very details, cut and dry, in first edition improvisation and creativity pay off. Instead of throw a flask of oil and then throwing a torch in the next round. They learned to create a molotove cocktail. They learned that 10′ poles have uses other than a walking stick. They learned that subdual is possible but more difficult to hit with edged weapons.
Some of the highlights of the evening, included my personal favorite, the suicidally brave fighter who couldn’t fight. One fighter who was low on HP put ona necklace which made him super brave and forced to charge into every combat. (curse). This, combined with low HP made the player feel a bit defeated. So in an effort to kill his character (so he could roll another) he removed his armor and weapons. Well, he decided to go after an idol in an underground cave and knock it over (made of clay) to destroy it, and undoubtedly get attacked by something. He was correct. A giant centipede hiding in the rubble attacked! Without any armor the Centipede hit. However Giant centipede’s don’t do any damage and only have a poison effect. The poison makes you nauseated for 10 days and unable to perform any physical activity. (other than walking, with assistance). LOL!!!! Now our suicidal fighter couldn’t even kill himself with his own sword! Ergo his next 3 combats he would stagger into the fray “I GOT THIS!” and lean on the enemies when he could.
Another highlight was the Magic-User who threw her one and only sleep spell and put 8 orcs to sleep! Very good use of a sleep spell and the party was all fired up! However the same magic user had drunk an ESP potion as well, and in another encounter a phantom warrior appeared when the party was trying to grab a floating sword. The warrior killed a party member in one hit, and the magic-user hears the thoughts, “I can’t believe I’m dead, I can’t believe he just hit me”. To which she states to the party, in a very serious manner. “Guys, I think I can hear dead people!”. After this happened again to another character, the Magic User realized that ESP doesn’t work on dead people. Her allies were actually under a spell and only thought they were dead. =)
After the night, I gathered some feedback. Mostly about the comparisons of first edition compared to the 4E they had been playing. Out of the collective 8 players, 6 players would definitely play again. The two who didn’t were the second and third youngest players in the group who mainly desired “more variety” in things to do. They felt that first edition was basically the same thing over and over again. Open door, fight monster/solve puzzle, move to next door. Not to argue too deeply but yeah, that’s really just D&D in general no matter what edition you play. I think their accustomed to having the card attacks, utility powers etc. Likewise, first edition really lets your imagination drive your attacks and combat decisions. I think one of them just isn’t really used to flexing that muscle at a gaming table, but likes to have the choices laid out in card form. Which is basically what 4E has done. That’s ok though, there’s a reason first edition evolved into second, and more visible choice is one of those reasons.
Most of the players really enjoyed the speed of combat, and search ability, noting how fast it went and how much they could get done. Secondly, most were surprised at how easily they could die!!!! Some even mentioned FourthCore was nothing compared to this. In total we had 10 deaths. One player died 3 times (poor halflings), 2 Fighter deaths, 2 Elf deaths, 2 Dwarf deaths, and one magic-user who never cast a single spell. =( But three players managed to navigate the night in one piece. Both thieves, and the Cleric. It wasn’t like everything was their fault though, when you have 5 hit point and mobs do 1d8 damage some of it is just bad luck. (granted they should have tossed the sleep spell then)
In all it was a great time. I very much believe that everyone should experience a first edition game in order to really gain an appreciation for where the game evolved from. In a way it may even give players an insight or an idea that could be useful for their home games as well. I think a good deal can be learned from understand how the game used to be played, why changed were made, and what changes should be un-made.
Anyway, they managed to finish about 70% of the module in one night, and from all signs it looks like most of them would like to finish it up and save the fair Princess Argenta! So we may have a sequel sometime soon! Many thanks to my players for giving me a blast from the past! I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.
You wrote: “they were able to go through 20 plus encounters in a session; exploring about 35 rooms in the dungeon”.
I’m curious — if you exclude time spent to roll up characters and other non-roleplaying activities, how long did it take to do the 20 encounters and 35 rooms? Playing OD&D at Cons I think I’ve determined it is about 5 rooms and about 2-4 encounters an hour depending if it’s a straight dungeon crawl or a wilderness adventure or something with heavy roleplaying. Is that your experience?
Thanks for reading. Well rolling up characters was done prior to the session. But each person took about 10 minutes to roll one up. That included shopping for equipment.
We started playing at Noon, we had a 30 minute break for food at 5pm, and stopped roughly about 9:30 pm. So about 9 hours of play time. Subtract another half an hour for Q&A, story telling, and misc. They stayed pretty focused at the task on hand. So 8.5 / 38 rooms (Final tally) that’s 13.4 minutes per room. That includes mapping time, party discussion, and everything. Some rooms were obviously empty, but there were 20 encounters where combat was an option. (they RP’d their way out of two of them) So estimating that, that’s 20 “encounters” over 8.5 hours = 25.5 minutes per “encounter”.
I think your estimates are pretty close. Obviously first level, first edition goes MUCH faster than anything else out there, but yes that is a good estimate and I would concur. Right up until 3.5 edition then you can almost cut that in half. to about 2 encounters per hour. And finally 4E which makes 1 per hour a “Maybe”. Definately getting slower.
Is that your estimate?
Yes, that’s definitely my experience across all the editions.
OD&D — My last two conventions with OD&D games I tracked rooms and encounters and it averaged out to 6-8 encounters and 15-20 rooms for a 4 hour time slot.
3ed & Pathfinder — I just counted, and in these Pathfinder modules meant to run in 4 hours, they average out to 5 encounters:
4 encounters — PFS #2-15 Shades Of Ice Part I — Written In Blood
7 encounters — PFS #2-16 Shades Of Ice Part II — Exiles Of Winter
5 encounters — PFS #2-17 Shades Of Ice Part III — Keep of the Huscarl King
4 encounters — PFS #45 — Delirium’s Tangle
5 encounters — PFS #33 — Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible
4ed — I’ve not played it but once, but combat took nearly an hour for one encounter. Plus the weekly Wednesday “Encounters” program for gaming shops has them run a 2 hour slot, with 1 encounter (which takes about an hour I believe) and the rest being roleplaying and skill challenges.
To recap my experience:
OD&D: 1.75 encounters an hour
3ed & Pathfinder: 1.25 encounters an hour
4ed: 0.5 encounters an hour
Or, to put it another way, from my experience, OD&D ran 350% faster (3.5 times more encounters for the same time period) than 4th Ed. does. A very different kind of game.
Seems pretty bang on, for our comparison. Take into account a slieght increase in speed for first level characters; we seem to be moving a little on the quicker end of the scale, but within reason.
You are right though, it reallty is a different game compared to 4E.
Thanks again for posting!
It was a great time playing, although running a 1st Level Magic User in First Edition is the anti-striker compared to 4e! I enjoyed playing the simple-minded Fighter more, but I imagine the Magic User becomes more fun as you level.
Very interesting to go backward and think about how the game has developed. I haven’t jotted down some thoughts on that, but likely will at some point.
Thanks for running it!
Thanks, you are definately welcome. You are correct, Magic-Users become VERY powerful down the line. You start noticing a shift around level 6-7 when a Magic-User starts to be able to cast a spell every fight. By the time they reach level 12 they are very strong, and If memory serves it’s level 17 when they get that 9th level spell at which time the World is their oyster.
By comparison, Fighters start to lose ground at around level 12. They prograssively get stronger but the incremennts at that point are almost negligable.
[...] of the game. So I was eager to travel back in time when my DM recently suggested that we play a session of First Edition. We played Palace of the Silver Princess, and it was an eye-opening experience for me both as a DM [...]