[AD&D] Coping Mechanisms

[atolnon]

"We are playing D&D tonight, and maybe I am bored with being Gregnar, the Fighter. I have a lucren hammer hook-fuchard, which is the most rediculous pole arm I could find. Or maybe I made it up. I don't remember.

They all look like point bits soldered onto a clothes pole to me. This is how I imagine they made weapons in the dark ages. The Lord was like, "Hey, let's fucking war on some dude." and the villagers didn't have, like, swords, so they just got tree-trimmers and shit. It was better if the handle is longer, so you're not so close to the other guys point bits.

"All I want to do is give this cow some hay!" said Gregnar. "And maybe get some milk."
"Too bad." Says the Lord.
"Man." Says Gregnar, somewhat disappointed."

Actually, so, AD&D doesn't make any sense, but sometimes Brent wants to play it anyhow. Between you and I, I am tired of trying to make AD&D make sense. What the hell are those saves? Vs. Dragon's Breath? Vs. Petrification/Polymorph? How did they think of these things? No. Instead of trying to make sense of it, I just assume that they are laws of nature.

Law of Getting Your Ass Turned Into Stone By a Motherfucking Beholder or Some Shit, We Don't Know. Why Are You In Front of A Beholder, Anyhow? This Wouldn't of Been An Issue If Your Dumb Ass Had Just Stayed In Waterdeep.
They had to simplify it a little, but that's the gist.

I am not sure how many apprentices had to be turned into stone for the sages to get the appropriate numbers on the Save DCs, but they did. These are specific, if maybe poorly-formed laws of nature. In addition to gaining class levels, where once you level up, you just take something that maybe you were training for.

Or maybe seems appropriate. Like, you can't explain anything else, so now you're a Thief. Which is ok, I guess. Dude, disarm that trap. Seriously, Gregnar almost lost his hand last time.

So, now, in the D&D of my imagination, there isn't any abstraction. Fighters really can fall off cliffs or get shot a lot with crossbow bolts, and who cares? They've got a lot of HP. And being a Paladin kind of sucks, because alignment is really pretty nonsensical. You're Lawful and Good, not just because that's what you were inclined to do anyhow, but because that's the team you play for. There are other planes, and shit, and they're fighting, and you're like minions of cosmic forces too grand to begin to comprehend, because you're not clued in. All you know if that you get Searing Light three times a day and undead are bad. Evil is the same way, except with more spikes and they poison you sometimes.

Also, fiends. You know.

Don't try to reason it out. The rules are natural law.
Man. But I still don't get all those goddamn pole arms.

Comments

[drbuzzkill.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's more or less exactly how they came up with some of those polearms. The peasants brought whatever farm implement they had around the hovel and fought with it.

"What's that?"
"A pitchfork."
"You brought a fucking pitchfork to the battlefield? Is that the best you had lying around?"
"Yes, it is."
"Fine. Just hammer the tines flat and you can fight with it. Try not to die."

Also, you should be playing 4th ed. It makes more sense. No more Save vs. Paralyzation, Polymorph, and Death Magic. (My favourite)

[nagarerutenshi.livejournal.com]

You say you don't get polearms, and yet you have told exactly how they came up with them.

[atolnon.livejournal.com]

Man. Your two responses are the best responses. I'm pretty highly amused at the support for 4th I'm seeing after you got a headache on the first trial game, though. Did you get accustomed to it ok?

So, I have no real desire to play AD&D, but one day when we were sitting around, Brent announced that he had a powerful desire to run it all of a sudden.

"This idea is not great." I said, but you know. So he bought a set of Forgotten Relms books for seven bucks and he's going to run it. Above is my coping mechanism. In fact, I will probably go title it now.

My knowledge of pole arms is fueled by a lot of history classes and beer, Tenshi. =D

[nagarerutenshi.livejournal.com]

So when the alcohol fades away, so does the enlightenment?

AD&D is really crappy, hope you live through it.

[atolnon.livejournal.com]

The answer is that it totally does.

AD&D is an awful game, and the only thing I ever liked about it were the really far out settings. Planescape, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer were D&D to me. As much as I loved me some Lord of the Rings, I never really felt compelled to mirror that atmosphere in my own games.

But the mechanics are just really bad, but worse then that, they're tedious and dull. On the other hand, it'll probably be fairly fun to play anyhow. That'd be less because of the mechanics, and pretty much totally because gaming with friends is fun.

[drbuzzkill.livejournal.com]

Agreed. The very best settings died with 2nd Ed.

[atolnon.livejournal.com]

And I don't have the money for 4e. If I were going to run D&D, I would just use 3.5, Blue Rose, or its True20 variant. My knowledge of the d20 rule set is deep and abiding.

[brantai.livejournal.com]

So first off, it's the Dragonlance Classics set of modules. Which may bode worse than an FR game since they're pretty much the most railroady of modules. I like the setting quite a bit more than FR, though, and it's easier to futz about with modules than setting. Less cascading consequences.

HP and levels are a lot easier to stomach if you think of the world as operating on narrative importance rather than anything resembling physics. You can take 20 crossbow bolts without keeling over? Man, you must be a protagonist.

As to 2nd edition, I'm well aware that it's terrible. But it hits the power curve I'd like better than 3rd edition. There's this whole assumption in 3e that things are going to scale with you - which is why commoner is a 20 level class. 2e doesn't have that. At best, everyone else in the world is level 1 and at worst, they're not even classed. They've just got these stats, you know?