Post by ripx187 on Jun 28, 2018 18:50:28 GMT -5
I want to thank you guys; everyone here. I showed up a few years ago irritated with AD&D, but I had stuck with it and had no real plans to change until I heard of the fascinating and exciting things that you guys were doing. For folks that don't know, I had already gotten tired of the whole module scene, and was stripping my 2nd Edition game down but it just wasn't enough. I had discovered the pleasure of DIY, and had always believed the hype that OD&D was an incomplete system, but after following this group for a while I knew that I had to convince my players to try this.
I had applied the OD&D DM style, and was very pleased with the results that I got, but the players still used the AD&D Handbooks and rules. Eventually, I got them sold on the idea of trying the original D&D game, and letting it evolve from just the basics to a system that belongs to us! We've been a group off and on since the 90's. I wouldn't say that AD&D got stale, I had learned to add stuff of my own a long time ago, I guess that it just got to feeling Bloated.
After reading stories about playing the old game, I was hooked! I had to try it. My games were still very story based, the Domain Play was hinted at in the books, but I didn't know how to unlock it, or even if my players would think that it would be fun. I found confidence here.
Last Weekend was the first day of the new OD&D campaign. Our world. While I was on Vacation I drew up a city map and labelled all of the fun little sections of town, and I came up with a backstory for the place. When I got home I had my wife print off the OD&D rules while I drew up a couple of Dungeon Levels. I wanted 3 cause that was what was suggested, but I only got two done. I barely labelled them, I started to make a key but I just didn't have time to do much. I also had plans on arresting the player's characters and forcing them to dungeon delve until they could pay off their fines, but at the last minute I thought, you know what? I can do this. We'll play by the seat of our pants. The whole point of this was to let them tell the story, and I just give them the stage to do it.
On the player side, everybody is freaking out. We've only ever played AD&D before. I told my wife to not worry about character sheets, but she insisted on printing them off anyway. She didn't like it, but she was willing to humour me. In AD&D she had a lot of control! In this game, the players had to give all of that up. That is a hard transition to make! "How can we play when we don't know our proficiencies?" "Roll 3d6 in order? Who plays like that?" (Well, I did bend a bit, and let them reroll 1's and 2's one time, but if they roll low again then that is the will of the Dice gods)
I even talked my oldest son into trying the game out again. He had played it once but didn't like it. He said that if he could play a wizard than he'd try it, and I said DEAL! AD&D wizards are harder than heck, and I always sucked at DMing for kids, but after reading comments here I got a better idea on how to do it, so he was in.
We rolled up characters, and I explained the rules and we decided upon start-up conditions. We'd start with 6 hp, and I explained how XP would work and that they were responsible for keeping track of it. It was fun to look at them trying to figure out if this was a team or if these guys were their opponents. Of course startup was easy. That was a big selling point for them. No more fussing, roll em up, buy equipment and go. I also cheated and had them roll against the random Jobs table found in 2e cause I love it.
We've got no cleric, nobody wanted to play one this time, and even though we were playing by the three books one of them wanted to play a Thief which I'm game for so we are creating it as we go basing it off of the cleric for now. She has no idea what her abilities are, and I'm using a D6 system over %dice. I made it pretty simple to unlock stuff on the first level of the dungeon, but it will get harder the lower they get.
Everyone else wanted to play fighters.
Storywise, I made it up. They were all playing kids, and they roll played it. My wife was killing me because she was playing her fighter like a bossy know it all who was always threatening to tell. I didn't draw a map for it, but their first task was to burgle a traders house and steal a key to Arista's Tower which was the antient haunted old wizard's tower that sits on the dungeon.
After all of that tough talk of mine about never rolling a d6 to find stuff, we used a d6 to find stuff. My kid figured the game out real fast, convincing the party to lift him up through the window so that he could make sure that the house was empty with his "Sleep spell" and proceded to find the best treasure in the place before anybody else could get a crack at it and qualified for level 2 in under a half an hour of playing cause he didn't share.
The whole game everyone was laughing and having a great time. My son charmed a hobgoblin and traded marbles for all of the monster's treasure and used him as a body guard. I've never seen him be so engaged before! He was really really into it, helping to solve puzzles, digging into the backstories that I had hidden all over the place. The last time he played he was confused over his character sheet and was told to just follow everybody else's lead until he understood what was going on. This time I just let him at it. He sat next to me so I could talk to him about his spells, which were just names. I gave him no descriptions and I let him tell me what they were for. THANKS PD! You brought us closer
This was the most fun playing a fantasy game that we've had in a very long time. I was worried about somethings, such as all of the weapons doing 1d6 and everyone using the same HD, but everyone loved it! It was easier to hit monsters, saving throws were easier to make, the wizard felt confident enough not to hide and wait for the perfect time to use his one spell. Everyone was engaged by what was going on, deciding how to split treasure up. It was a blast! I also got to experience something that I hadn't felt from RPG games in a long time; that D&D high at the end of the night.
Everyone was so into it that when the session ended and folks paid for training (spending all of their ill-gotten loot) they decided to go right back into the dungeon again for round 2! So, we kind of played 2 games that night
Anyhow, I wanted to share that with you folks. If it wasn't for you, it never would had happened so again. Thank you!
I had applied the OD&D DM style, and was very pleased with the results that I got, but the players still used the AD&D Handbooks and rules. Eventually, I got them sold on the idea of trying the original D&D game, and letting it evolve from just the basics to a system that belongs to us! We've been a group off and on since the 90's. I wouldn't say that AD&D got stale, I had learned to add stuff of my own a long time ago, I guess that it just got to feeling Bloated.
After reading stories about playing the old game, I was hooked! I had to try it. My games were still very story based, the Domain Play was hinted at in the books, but I didn't know how to unlock it, or even if my players would think that it would be fun. I found confidence here.
Last Weekend was the first day of the new OD&D campaign. Our world. While I was on Vacation I drew up a city map and labelled all of the fun little sections of town, and I came up with a backstory for the place. When I got home I had my wife print off the OD&D rules while I drew up a couple of Dungeon Levels. I wanted 3 cause that was what was suggested, but I only got two done. I barely labelled them, I started to make a key but I just didn't have time to do much. I also had plans on arresting the player's characters and forcing them to dungeon delve until they could pay off their fines, but at the last minute I thought, you know what? I can do this. We'll play by the seat of our pants. The whole point of this was to let them tell the story, and I just give them the stage to do it.
On the player side, everybody is freaking out. We've only ever played AD&D before. I told my wife to not worry about character sheets, but she insisted on printing them off anyway. She didn't like it, but she was willing to humour me. In AD&D she had a lot of control! In this game, the players had to give all of that up. That is a hard transition to make! "How can we play when we don't know our proficiencies?" "Roll 3d6 in order? Who plays like that?" (Well, I did bend a bit, and let them reroll 1's and 2's one time, but if they roll low again then that is the will of the Dice gods)
I even talked my oldest son into trying the game out again. He had played it once but didn't like it. He said that if he could play a wizard than he'd try it, and I said DEAL! AD&D wizards are harder than heck, and I always sucked at DMing for kids, but after reading comments here I got a better idea on how to do it, so he was in.
We rolled up characters, and I explained the rules and we decided upon start-up conditions. We'd start with 6 hp, and I explained how XP would work and that they were responsible for keeping track of it. It was fun to look at them trying to figure out if this was a team or if these guys were their opponents. Of course startup was easy. That was a big selling point for them. No more fussing, roll em up, buy equipment and go. I also cheated and had them roll against the random Jobs table found in 2e cause I love it.
We've got no cleric, nobody wanted to play one this time, and even though we were playing by the three books one of them wanted to play a Thief which I'm game for so we are creating it as we go basing it off of the cleric for now. She has no idea what her abilities are, and I'm using a D6 system over %dice. I made it pretty simple to unlock stuff on the first level of the dungeon, but it will get harder the lower they get.
Everyone else wanted to play fighters.
Storywise, I made it up. They were all playing kids, and they roll played it. My wife was killing me because she was playing her fighter like a bossy know it all who was always threatening to tell. I didn't draw a map for it, but their first task was to burgle a traders house and steal a key to Arista's Tower which was the antient haunted old wizard's tower that sits on the dungeon.
After all of that tough talk of mine about never rolling a d6 to find stuff, we used a d6 to find stuff. My kid figured the game out real fast, convincing the party to lift him up through the window so that he could make sure that the house was empty with his "Sleep spell" and proceded to find the best treasure in the place before anybody else could get a crack at it and qualified for level 2 in under a half an hour of playing cause he didn't share.
The whole game everyone was laughing and having a great time. My son charmed a hobgoblin and traded marbles for all of the monster's treasure and used him as a body guard. I've never seen him be so engaged before! He was really really into it, helping to solve puzzles, digging into the backstories that I had hidden all over the place. The last time he played he was confused over his character sheet and was told to just follow everybody else's lead until he understood what was going on. This time I just let him at it. He sat next to me so I could talk to him about his spells, which were just names. I gave him no descriptions and I let him tell me what they were for. THANKS PD! You brought us closer
This was the most fun playing a fantasy game that we've had in a very long time. I was worried about somethings, such as all of the weapons doing 1d6 and everyone using the same HD, but everyone loved it! It was easier to hit monsters, saving throws were easier to make, the wizard felt confident enough not to hide and wait for the perfect time to use his one spell. Everyone was engaged by what was going on, deciding how to split treasure up. It was a blast! I also got to experience something that I hadn't felt from RPG games in a long time; that D&D high at the end of the night.
Everyone was so into it that when the session ended and folks paid for training (spending all of their ill-gotten loot) they decided to go right back into the dungeon again for round 2! So, we kind of played 2 games that night
Anyhow, I wanted to share that with you folks. If it wasn't for you, it never would had happened so again. Thank you!
