The incredible austerity of D&D in 1980

i wanna play D&D :(

if some day an enterprising ilxor decides to GM an RPG campaign over the internet i would be very interested in participating

― Mordy, Thursday, March 12, 2015 3:34 PM (3 days ago)

i've tried this a few times and never quite been able to get it off the ground. people aren't "present" enough ime and the participation becomes very uneven.

still, would love to give it another shot!

have been desperately trying to figure out what i did with my copy of

http://scriiipt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/jorune.jpg

ime the trick is to have a set session every week and enough players that some can be missing at any given session and you still have a party

Like you can't count on everyone ever being there at the same time

are you talking like over chat or over message board?

i've only ever tried to do online rpg by message board

I used to play on a dedicated piece of software that included a dice machine, a map rendering program, and chat software but I've heard about ppl playing face to face now over Google or Skype or whatever

i know people that have played via online tabletop and it seems to work well

Lamp are u in nyc yet i would hella play in a campaign of yours

it looks like it wont be until august but i would actually love to run a campaign when ive moved

Well I was totally serious so let's do that. We can make ian play.

Played a small group session today (with my friend being DM), first dnd of the year for me. There were only 4 of us including dm and it's nice how fast things move along with a group that size. Of course it's the smallest viable group, 2 players and a dm is just too few imo.

i've been reading the IDW forgotten realms series and i'm itching to get into a campaign. who can i bully into GMing one online?

can't find my copy of jorune, but found empire of the petal throne online!

So many old rpgs, wargames and magazines scanned into Scribd... Havevwasted a lot of work time reading old call of cthulhu manuals and white dwarfs from before it became a games workshop only publication and car wars expansions and 1980s d&d modules...

I just made a joke at work about how weird "races" in D&D were

and then I had to explain what D&D was

:(

it's ok man, youre safe here

(also why are like all of the player character races smaller than humans)

Two-part guest post at CRPG Addict, on "Why The Economy Sucks in the SSI Gold Box Games," has some very thread-worthy details imho. Part One, Part Two. A highlight:

In AD&D 1E it was fairly easy for magical items and treasure to get destroyed in the course of combat.

"Cone of Cold," for example, was developed specifically by Gary Gygax’s son Ernie, because he was sick of ruining all of the treasure they’d find when he’d cast a "Fireball" at a group of opponents.

Per the table on the 1E DMG page 80: "Metal, soft or Jewelry" saves against a Fireball on an 18-20 on a d20 roll. So, with RAW, anytime you’d cast a fireball you have an 85% chance of melting any gold or jewelry on the target. It only fails its save 5% of the time vs. "Cone of Cold" or "Ice Storm," though.

It should be noted that this applied to everything. A character caught in a "Fireball" had to roll for any money on his person, any jewelry, any armor or weapons.

Metal, Hard, saves 75% of the time, with a +5% bonus per +1 on a magical item, but that still means over time you’d lose a lot of treasure, and personal weapons and items, to fireballs. Even a +4 or +5 suit of armor would, statistically speaking, get blown to bits by the twentieth-ish fireball that hit you, since they would still fail a save on a 1 d20 (5% chance).

These rules were, it should be noted, generally not used in "standard" play. It’s pretty cumbersome to make 7+ die rolls, per character, per fireball. As a result, most people would not have expected them to exist, and their exclusion is understandable.

love the phrase "high gygaxian".

In the spirit of this other thing I did*, I may have started making a tiny little circa-1990 games shop:
https://s17.postimg.org/xs1tm0zu7/photo_2.jpg
Each rack is about an inch high.

*I made a little tiny record store and I'm boasting about it

love that <3

awesome

has anyone else read the Gygax bio?

https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Imagination-Gygax-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/1632862794

I was pretty fascinated with it, he reminded me of my dad in some ways (who also played RPGs with me back in the 70s)

Totally gonna read that.

has anyone read any Gygax books? I have a couple of them but just haven't been in the mood for a fantasy novel lately, they must be good though right?

well done @ that tiny games shop btw, the record store and bookshop too

I understand you probably aren't exactly making these for children but after purchasing similar things for my daughter recently I can say that she would absolutely flip out over something this size with so much incredible detail, and I would feel much better spending money on some actual craftsmanship and imagination

Holy shit, the tiny game shop is amazing.

sheesh, I still have the PDFs I created for all the bits of the music and bookshops somewhere: although there wouldn't be any instructions, I could email them to you for you and your daughter to figure out

tiny shop is awesome, bravo!

very, very cool. Where is this displayed?

...in my house

it deserves an audience, truly

Love the tiny shop's selection of Autoduel Quarterly.

:) There's a boxed Car Wars on the table, too.

Cheers, SMotion!

I'm imagining some leftover still-shrinkwrapped Steve Jackson pocket box game hanging on some disused part of the shop behind the metal miniatures. It's probably an Ogre supplement.

I really wish I still had my old copies of Melee, Wizard, Ogre, and GEV.

there was this text-based d&d game i played on my family's first PC in the late 80s and early 90s and i really wish i could find out what it was, it was just called "dungeons & dragons" and it was super weird and creepy, i would love to play it again. every time i see this thread come up i think of that game because it was incredibly austere

tiny shop v cool btw

marcos: one of these?

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2013/12/game-125-dungeons-and-dragons-1980.html
http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2015/04/game-182-dungeons-dragons-and-other.html
http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2015/03/game-180-dnd-1984.html

hey it's the third one!!! thank you!!!

i played one of the versions before it was renamed "necromancer's domain"

i played either the 1984 original or v 1.2

the games all feature limited mechanics, rapid random encounters with both enemies and special objects, and death that is quick, frequent, and usually permanent.

haha yes "quick, frequent, and usually permanent" death was what i remember most, this game was hard!

Those look awesome has anyone ported them for modern deeevices

glad i could help! CRPGAddict delivers the goods once again. I believe he's said he won't, but I really hope he turns that project into a huge dense, fabulous book someday - it is ludicrously comprehensive while avoiding so many pitfalls of the genre.

Now with interrupted gaming session

https://s10.postimg.org/jpkpociq1/photo_1.jpg

aw mayne

regarding the gygax bio, i started it, found it painful, quickly put it down. i am currently enjoying 'playing at the world' which crpg addict guy cites a lot. there is a lot wrong with it though

i played D&D between 79-82 give or take

the austerity didn't really register

cool interview here with an old friend of mine who worked at ICE for the duration:

http://www.rolemasterblog.com/interview-terry-k-amthor-author-shadow-world-c-e-founder/

Ah, Rolemaster/MERP and those crazy critical hit tables

I'm playing my first ever D&D game next weekend. As a teenager, I briefly and badly DM'd a few games of Paranoia, but this is first ever go as a PC. Any advice? What's a good way to grit your teeth and not feel embarrassed? I want to enjoy it. Also I want the people I'm playing with to have a good time. My partner is joining us and used to play regularly as a teen. She says "figuring out how to play when you're not high" is her main challenge.

be at ease! be curious! keep in mind that your group is a crew! I think when you role-play you're always in part playing yourself so don't worry too much about really "taking on the role," it emerges through your own voice in my limited experience

d&d emphasizes mechanics + particularly combat mechanics but in all roleplaying games inc d&d the most memorable games are not the ones where you win the most but the ones where unexpected things happen. so be unexpected. don't feel limited by what is obvious that you can do. just don't tell the dm what results from your choices (that's his job) or tell the other players what their characters do.

i'd love to get into an rpg but i don't have any friends that want to gm a game and i don't feel up to gm'ing myself. :( i haven't played in one in prob over a decade now. :( :(