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Why Did AD&D Lose Its Charm?
Adrian Martinez wrote:
This has always been nagging me at the back of my mind, so I'm throwing it
to the list for discussion:Rules aside, what was it about AD&D that enchanted and beguiled us so? How
were the other games able to lure us away?Adrian
Mike Pua wrote:
I think we all go through our medieval fantasy phase. Even now, we look forward to the movie version of perhaps one of the greatest, if not the greatest, works of fantasy fiction ever written, The Lord of the Rings.
On a personal note, i would say that Tolkien's trilogy, more than anything, placed AD&D on the gamer's map. to BECOME someone in the mold of Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, or Frodo was every reader's dream and AD&D provided that venue. We plunged into that game with glee, creating character after character, participating in adventure after adventure.
Eventually, of course, AD&D lost its appeal. Most gamers find other diversions as they grow older. Other worlds catch their fancy. Other genres capture their attention. I guess the sheer diversity of choice is, even now, affecting our choices for which games we choose.
Mike
Erwin Chua wrote:
Dear Adrian,
I believe I left it because I realize the limitations the rules provided. So
I left looking for other stories which touched my fancy. Medieval fantasy
became very boring to me then. But I was my very first taste at RPG and I'll
never forget the hours I would spend poring over all the books they had.Irwin
Tommy Lim wrote:
Irwin spurred a memory of mine. Three things.
I've come to realize what I didn't like most about AD&D was the relationship between hit points and level. My favorite games as a player and as a GM were times when the characters were in the level of 5 to 8. Here they have a decent number of hit points to be heroic, they have sufficient powers and skills to meet heroic challenges. At the same time the disparity in hit points was not ridiculous and the armor classes and healing spells were not ludicrous.
They were above the common man and rightly so but not the equals of gods.
In the last AD&D game I GMed the most powerful item was an artifact, a dagger, eight of them actually, that was/were pivotal to the story. These artifacts could not be abused because they chose when to do their magic. The next powerful useful magic item was an "ordinary" +2 sword. It's difficult to trade the look on Emmanuel Calupig's face as he wielded the sword he fought so hard and well to obtain. Magic enhanced the campaign but in no way was overruning it. The characters were blossoming. It was good.
The campaign stopped with four of the of the eight daggers collected. I forgot the reasons why we stopped but at least the game as it ran was a pleasant one. The campaign was designed with a specific end point and if reached, the
characters might have stopped at level 8 or 9.But the spectre of the hit point issue had always been on my mind. The armor class issue was a second point. Until 1989 I had only known AD&D. Marvel was a good experience where I first encountered the damage reduction effects of armor, not perfect, but it was something useful. In Robotech I met the concept of armor value reduction (indirectly). After those games AC suddenly looked clunky.
The final nail in the coffin was The War of Winter. Back in 1983 when I started AD&D, and our group characterized each other's selves as AD&D character classes I was identified as a mage. In games other than AD&D my characters were mostly mages or mage-like, moreso of recent. But once I hit the AD&D scene ... I'm a Halfling. If you check the ROUGH Ministry of Culture site run by my cuz Mike, I'm listed as being famous for "His Halfling Thieves!" AD&D's rules have placed a bit of a damper on my creativity.
There is a tad too much pigeon-holing. I could not express myself appropriately and fully if I were playing any other character class.
Then came War of Winter where I got a taste of free-form magic. The predicate system that Adrian borrowed from (I forgot where) allowed much freedom of magical expression while keeping the magic constrained appropriately, my Alistair and Dennis's Moraid were powerful mages with literally earth shaking spell capabilities, yet it takes no effort to distinguish between us in our magic use.
In one fell swoop I understood ... "THIS is a mage of epic lore". I understood the power, I understood the price, I also understood their frailty. Alistair is both my most powerful and most vulnerable character to date....a haunting feeling ... he is not completey defined yet but already stands as one of my all time favorites. Alistair cannot be created in AD&D.
Pardon my waxing sentimental, but all at once I felt again the allure, the spectacle, and the disillusionment that is/was to me AD&D.
I played a brief game of AD&D recently ... I think you know who played the halfling.
Tommy
PS. It's not a matter of being lured away. There were other great milleus and game systems out there to participate in and one named AD&D whose game system felt too clunky and limited by comparison.
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