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Sunday, November 18, 2012

The Future is Going Back to the Past - My New Campaign Will Be AD&D 1e



I let my group do an informal vote on the future of our Saturday Night gaming sessions. We had started with ACKS, moved on to A&A to do some playtesting (and caused the whole 2000 cp / rats ruckus) and now we are going back to the past: AD&D 1e with some house rules and Unearthed Arcana (no UA classes though). Players can reference AD&D 1e or OSRIC as they choose

I'll also be running my AD&D 1e sessions in 3 to 4 week arcs, then playing in Keith's Echelon campaign playtest for 3 to 4 weeks, and so on. It gives the DM's time to prep some rocking sessions and get to play too.

This should be a blast! No matter the rule set, if I don't know the rule I default to my AD&D genetic memory. It serves me well. I suspect I'll be able to run this with minimal page flipping after a session or two.

A for the house rules, this is what I have so far:

1 - Fighters and fighter subclasses are proficient in all weapons.

2 - Fighters start with 2 specialized weapons, subclasses 1. No others are gained later. No double specialization.

3 - Cleave rule as per ACKS. Fighters and subclasses do not gain 1 attack per level when fighter creatures under 1 HD

4 - Magic-User and Illusionist gain bonus spells as per their Intelligence Score, using the Wisdom Bonus spell chart for Clerics

5 - Clerics may gain use of certain non-cleric weapons depending on the god they follow.

6 - Bard Class as per Dragon Issue #56

7 - Monster and NPC saves will be converted into Spell Attack Rolls as per my earlier post on the subject

8 - 100 coins per pounds, not 10 coins per pound

9 - % Chance to learn spell for Magic Users is gone

10 - after determining initial spells randomly, Magic-Users can pick one further spell of their choice

11 - No Assassins, No evil PCs (I know my group way too well to allow this)




7 comments:

  1. Glad to see this! AD&D is my favorite old-school game, by several magnitudes. Something about that specific balance of rules vrs. framework that hits the spot.

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  2. Those are some light coins. A gold double eagle ($20 in 1920) weighed about an ounce, and the Morgan Silver Dollar weighed 3/4 of an ounce. 20 coins to a pound would be more accurate, unless they are dime sized. EGG didn't get his coin values and weights from nowhere, after all, though the official ratio in the 1800s was apparently 16:1 silver to gold. He just rounded the figures.

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  3. True, but medieval coins were...gah, must resist turning comments into circa1981Forumargumentfest.

    Personally I favor 50 to the pound.

    Eric, this sounds really great. I'm envious of your group. :)

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  4. Cool! 1e is my favorite incarnation of the game. Have fun!

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  5. I finished up my AD&D game a couple months back. I ran it as pure as I could with the AD&D rules and it was a lot of fun and it educated me on what I liked and didn't like. Good luck with the game!

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  6. my house rules are in truth, fairly minimal and don't really effect the core of the game.

    what little there is is to accomodate my GM style and my player's gaming style ;)

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  7. Classic is my personal favorite, but I'm in the midst of continuing a run through The Tomb of Horrors online with Goggle Hangouts. I fun 1e more similarly to Classic, but that's the beauty of the earlier editions... it doesn't really matter, so long as everyone is having fun!

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