Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[IrishGuy088]

Which brings me to the question. Which ADnD are we talking about? I ask because I get it wrong. 1e is Basic and Expert, but Advanced is a different game but not 2e? Except it is 2e? Except it's basically the same game with new climb rules?

I'm talking about Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition. There was original D&D and then after that came Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which was eventually "upgraded" to Advanced D&D 2nd Edition. In my experience, AD&D 2nd Edition was the more well-known of the flavors of AD&D but I always played AD&D 1st Edition because... I mean I guess because I learned how to play it and that was the one I liked. It always seemed a bit more open-ended, even if it had a lot more busywork and tables and shit. AD&D 2nd Edition is fine, too. I mean it is certainly better than what came after.

But a lot of the legendary D&D stuff that people know about was from D&D and AD&D (1 or 2) and then those people climbed on board during 3rd Edition and mostly during 3.5 as the system became much more streamlined. When you think of nerds in the basement or in the back room of the game shop playing D&D in the 80s, you're thinking of First Edition and especially AD&D.

 

[Snekposter]

Explaining Armor Class to people is the filter for AD&D.

There's no need for THAC0 in this day and age though.

 

[IrishGuy088]

There's no need for THAC0 in this day and age though.

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

 

[Ghostse]

Random post, looking for random thoughts.

I've been spending some of my spare time after work streamlining and retrofitting AD&D 1e to be a bit more friendly for some of my non-D&D friends. They really want me to host a game for them (it would be their first) and I know their desire is genuine. But when I told them I would have to do it in AD&D 1e (because that's what I know best) they sort of went cross-eyed at the amount of stuff involved. I'm trying to offload some of the busywork so that they can more or less jump in and start running around and rolling a d20.

Yeah I know it's not the same. But I think I can keep most of the charm of AD&D and cut down on some of the work. If you were in my shoes, what would you do (besides killing yourself or not doing the project)? I guess I'm sort of redesigning 3rd Edition/3.5 with knowledge of where those systems failed and ended up breaking some of the core aspects of the game.

Here's what I would do:
I would boil the frog.

Do B/X or your favorite B/X clone because that shit is not complicated at all. AD&D has a bit of a bad rep because you can hook up a bunch of subsystems - like encumbrance and weapon speed - that make things turbo spergy. But you can basically get them started on B/X and slowly introduce systems from AD&D. Once they realize this shit isn't that bad you'll have them on AD&D.

Step 3: Scrap legacy bullshit.

Some of the legacy stuff is important. Wizards aren't supposed to be one spell and go home, they are supposed to think very carefully about their limited ammo (and be collecting the fuck out of wands and staffs so thye can't just dump stat CHR) and be ready to fall back to whacking shit with a staff if needed.

also remember that characters should really start at level 3. Level 1 is a punishment for dying.

There's no need for THAC0 in this day and age though.

He just described the need.
Show me a tranny or dangerhair wanting to be a character in a wheelchair playing a game with THAC0 pwned, bish.

 

[Snekposter]

Show me a tranny or dangerhair wanting to be a character in a wheelchair playing a game with THAC0 pwned, bish.

You know as well as I do that these sorts of people will drag themselves through broken glass if it means they get to shove their fetishes into someone else's game. And THAC0 is almost as bad as that.

 

[The Ugly One]

No. It's just dumb. Adding extra steps for the sake of complexity.

There is exactly one step to convert a monster from any TSR edition of the game to ACKS. You subtract the TSR-style AC from 9, and you get the ACKSs-style AC. That's it. The monster is now fully usable as written, no changes. Any other OSR game is going to be equally simple, at most an AC shift.

Which brings me to the question. Which ADnD are we talking about? I ask because I get it wrong. 1e is Basic and Expert, but Advanced is a different game but not 2e? Except it is 2e? Except it's basically the same game with new climb rules?

AD&D: Could be 1e or 2e, doesn't really matter except when having gay slapfights about hill giant hit dice or the lack of a Thief-Acrobat. Reality is differences are marginal enough that an adventure from one edition can be used in the other with no harm done. Those who disagree can fite me irl.

0e/OD&D: The original Dungeons & Dragons paperbacks
1e: AD&D, First edition
2e: AD&D, Second Edition
3.0, 3.5, 4e, 5e: Self-explanatory
B/X: Moldvay & Cook Basic/Expert D&D
BECMI: The Mentzer Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal D&D set

 

[p1138]

You know as well as I do that these sorts of people will drag themselves through broken glass if it means they get to shove their fetishes into someone else's game. And THAC0 is almost as bad as that.

You're also talking about a crowd that can't handle single digit addition and whines about needing to add a +1 here and a +2 there being "too complicated".

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

You're also talking about a crowd that can't handle single digit addition and whines about needing to add a +1 here and a +2 there being "too complicated".

If you think trannies, furfags and gooners are exclusively in 5e, you're sorely mistaken. Theater kids stick to 5e. You all seem to be forgetting that trannies, furfags, and gooners are nearly all autistic men. You'll find them in any game/group that isn't openly racist and misogynistic; that's the actual grognard defense mechanism against these guys, not mechanical complexity.

 

[p1138]

If you think trannies, furfags and gooners are exclusively in 5e, you're sorely mistaken. Theater kids stick to 5e. You all seem to be forgetting that trannies, furfags, and gooners are nearly all autistic men. You'll find them in any game/group that isn't openly racist and misogynistic; that's the actual grognard defense mechanism against these guys, not mechanical complexity.

Of course, just look at trannytech. Still doesn't change that making players do simple math chases off plenty of retards.

 

[Snekposter]

Of course, just look at trannytech. Still doesn't change that making players do simple math chases off plenty of retards.

So why the hell is BattleTech so infested then?

 

[p1138]

So why the hell is BattleTech so infested then?
View attachment 7577466

Because of the autism to tranny pipeline, I called it trannytech for a reason. Apparently this is a difficult concept for people to follow so I'll try and explain it as simply as possible.

Basic 3rd grade math chases off retards. If a game requires such a thing, it has fewer retards than it could have. There have been multiple pushes for battletech over the past couple of years, especially every time GW does something that riles up idiots, and it never seems to get a bigger chunk of the marketshare. Why? because retards see the numbers and leave.

I'll try and make it even simpler: It would be worse.

Do you get it now?

 

[Adamska]

Show me a tranny or dangerhair wanting to be a character in a wheelchair playing a game with THAC0 pwned, bish.

Reminder that a woman demanded that system solely to cuck Gygax further from any royalties from DnD in 2e. So in all effect, you are bending the knee to a karen, one who also hated demons and devils so damn bad she demanded they get renamed.

It's also just asinine in general, forcing you to do an arbitrary calculation based on both yours and the bad guys AC, subtracting them, and then getting the result needed to check your low bar. It's just an ass "HAHA WE HAVE ALL THE RIGHTS NOW" mechanic that slows play down even when you remember it and do it well enough on the fly.

It's actually similar to how in most cases you could easily make DnD run without the 3d6 stat line at all, since they just factor in the bonuses they cause anyways. Not kidding, you can just do the "You get a +2, +1, +1, 0, 0, -1" and it'd plug in the same, give or take the arrays you want your team to have.

It's actually funny, because 5e in initial builds during development intended to cut it since it technically was superfluous, but then walked back at the last second. In fact that sort of rule by consensus is a major factor in why 5e turned into a shitshow.

That and Mearls/Crawford, the latter especially, but both in general.

 

[Ghostse]

Reminder that a woman demanded that system solely to cuck Gygax further from any royalties from DnD in 2e. So in all effect, you are bending the knee to a karen, one who also hated demons and devils so damn bad she demanded they get renamed.

It's also just asinine in general, forcing you to do an arbitrary calculation based on both yours and the bad guys AC, subtracting them, and then getting the result needed to check your low bar. It's just an ass "HAHA WE HAVE ALL THE RIGHTS NOW" mechanic that slows play down even when you remember it and do it well enough on the fly.

It's actually similar to how in most cases you could easily make DnD run without the 3d6 stat line at all, since they just factor in the bonuses they cause anyways. Not kidding, you can just do the "You get a +2, +1, +1, 0, 0, -1" and it'd plug in the same, give or take the arrays you want your team to have.

It's actually funny, because 5e in initial builds during development intended to cut it since it technically was superfluous, but then walked back at the last second. In fact that sort of rule by consensus is a major factor in why 5e turned into a shitshow.

That and Mearls/Crawford, the latter especially, but both in general.

So I'll level here:
THAC0 has its place but yes its sort of terrible and I always convert to ascending amor class because bigger number should always equal better. I just like grogposting about it.


The primary advantages to THAC0 (other than some stat sperggery) is it caps AC numbers (I mean in theory I've seen plenty of fuckery with AC more AC-y than zero) and it turns everything the player does into a save, if you imagine THAC0 as "I hit the monster unless it dodges; I save vs it avoiding my attack".

Grogs really oversell THAC0 but also I view anyone vehemently opposed to it with a very discerning eye because "I'm inflexable about new mechanics from what I'm used to" and "math is hard"

tl;dr: If I see promising player population I'll run a THAC0 one shot to see who flakes out and why. If it because they can't un-pathfinder their brain for new mechanics, I'm not going to waste time. Same if they are too dumb or lazy to try to work it out. But if they try it, grok it, and still just don't like it then that's not a problem.

 

[Judge Dredd]

B/X: Moldvay & Cook Basic/Expert D&D
BECMI: The Mentzer Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal D&D set

Aren't they 1e?

It's actually funny, because 5e in initial builds during development intended to cut it since it technically was superfluous, but then walked back at the last second. In fact that sort of rule by consensus is a major factor in why 5e turned into a shitshow.

That and Mearls/Crawford, the latter especially, but both in general.

Oh? The more I hear about 5es development, the stranger it gets.

"math is hard"

It's not that it's hard, it's that it slows things down.

I mock Pathfinder for this, but I have horrible memories of that game slowing to crawl as people tried to figure out which of dozens of 1 or 2 point buffs and debuff were active at one time.

From the DM side. If you excuse the language, but reducing mental load is key. I have a bunch of things to track. Rules, the adventure, traps, npcs, monsters, their health, their abilities, etc. If it's not important, cut it. A great example is edited monster stat lines. Most 5e monsters that take half a page could be a couple of lines easy. What do you need 99% Health, AC, hit modifier, damage, maybe a single line special ability or what saves they have.

I don't need attributes expressed as 3d6. I don't need to know what to roll to get the health value of a monster. I don't need a mage's full spell list and how many slots they have when the adventure calls for them to cast fireball then leaves.

 

[The Ugly One]

Aren't they 1e?

No. AD&D First Edition is a different game from Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax published AD&D as a separate game to try an gyp Dave Arneson out of his royalties. Arneson sued, and the court ruled that tacking "Advanced" on the name and changing a dozen or so rules doesn't weasel you out of paying.

It's not that it's hard, it's that it slows things down.

AD&D: roll d20 + bonuses - penalties + AC, compare to THAC0
3rd onward: roll d20 + bonuses - penalties + BAB, compare to AC

Which side of the ledger your attack bonus and monster AC show up on has little to do with how fast the game runs. The top things slowing down D&D combat:

1. How many ways to get those bonuses
2. How much time players spend trying to negotiate the rules with the DM
3. How much time players spend hemming and hawing over their options
4. Tracking statuses
   

Reminder that a woman demanded that system solely to cuck Gygax further from any royalties from DnD in 2e.

Where did you hear this? AFAIK Gygax's severance with TSR had nothing to do with using attack matrices, and he collected royalties on 2e. TSR also ended up buying Dangerous Journeys from him, which is a truly awful game.

It's actually funny, because 5e in initial builds during development intended to cut it since it technically was superfluous, but then walked back at the last second. In fact that sort of rule by consensus is a major factor in why 5e turned into a shitshow.

5e is the most successful edition of D&D in the history of the game. It's only a "shitshow" according to dank corners of the internet where certain grognards who are always mad have declared it to be a failure because their only success criterion is, "it stopped me from being mad."

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

The Megaverse game system is absolute jank central. I still can’t find the rule that explains how to roll for parry. But it’s serviceable, and I don’t read them for the game system, I read them because the sourcebooks and lore are genuinely interesting and well thought out.

The writers have some great ideas in these books, like the Wolfen Empire which is just the Roman Empire but with intelligent wolves. It somehow comes off less as a furry thing and more like a “Humans have to deal with sharing a planet with abhumans” thing. It’s done pretty well imo.

parrying an attack involves a 1d20 roll plus applicable bonuses (like Hand-to-Hand skill or weapon proficiencies), with the goal of exceeding the attacker's roll. If the parry roll is successful, the attack is parried, and the attacker's damage roll is negated. Certain skills, like Hand-to-Hand, grant automatic parry attempts against melee attacks without costing an action.

Boom, 30 second search.

Two things:

1E AD&D doesn't use THAC0. It uses the attack matrix. Have your player write that shit down on their piece of paper.
THAC0 is braindead easy. To Hit AC 0. Basic addition and subtraction. People just bitch about it because other people bitch.

I've run 1E Homebrew, 2E Ravenloft, PF1E Hombrew, Rifts, Chaos Earth, Shadowrun, Twilight 2000 Fulda Gap Express, and Star Frontiers/Knight Hawks for people over the last 5 or 6 years.

I tried PF2E and D&D 5E.

Guess what. The players didn't like PF2E or 5E.

THAC0 is pretty simple. If they have that much trouble, just have them write on the side of their character sheet:
(THAC0 16, using the old 'no 20 crit automatic rule)

-10 --22
-9 --21
-8 --20
-7 -- 20
-6 -- 20
-5 --20
-4 --20
-3 -- 19
-2 -- 18
-1 -- 17
0 -- 16
1 -- 15
2 -- 14
3 --13
4 -- 12
5 -- 11
6 -- 10
7 -- 9
8 -- 8
9 -- 7
10 -- 6

TADAH!


If they can't figure that out, they probably have trouble walking and breathing at the same time.

 

[PhoBingas]

So why the hell is BattleTech so infested then?

Wait, people still play battletech stuff? It's been 20 years since I've even seen their mech minis for sale near me.

 

[Snekposter]

Wait, people still play battletech stuff? It's been 20 years since I've even seen their mech minis for sale near me.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/battletech.42164/
Somewhat, yes.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Didn't have a bunch of purple haired troons fagging up the game with non-binary orcs and other fag shit when we had THAC0 as a gatekeeper.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Didn't have a bunch of purple haired troons fagging up the game with non-binary orcs and other fag shit when we had THAC0 as a gatekeeper.

The fact they didn't exist as a cultural force back in 89 probably had something to do with it, too.

Anyway, THAC0 hate is a meme. People don't like it for the same reason they think 40K's armor saves are weird: descending AC makes little logical sense under "bigger number = better" rules. If you can convert it so easily to ascending AC, there's no reason to use it other than contrarianism. I haven't seen a convincing mechanical benefit to THAC0 yet, it's generally just "that's how it was done!" or "it weeds out the wokes".

Wanna keep out the wokes? Design a game and setting with hair on their chest, and don't include any "how do deal with your trauma" BS in your game. Be up-front in telling people the game is about things the people you don't want playing won't like. If they insist, it's on them.