bombadil wrote:Oh, yeah, and there was one DM, very talented, who would confiscate your character sheet if you died, and tear it up in front of your eyes. Hard-core.
bbarsh wrote:I guess my best gaming memories are of just sitting down and playing simple AD&D. How cool was it to first meet the drow in Fire Giant. "Holy Crap! What the hell is that thing?" was the reaction. We didn't need uncountable volumes of books describing every aspect of the drow.
Badmike wrote:Wow. I ran into a guy exactly like this once. He eventually received his comeuppance though and retired from DMing when his authority was questioned and finally a player decided NOT to hand him his sheet and get it ripped up in front of him. He never was the same afterwards, and good riddance!Mike B.
Blackmoor wrote:Funny thing I recall. Our group bought all the books from the DMG to the wilderness and dungeoneers survival books. We used them all and were very frustrated at the mish mash of rules spread out amongst These manuals.Our old group was basically breaking up (university, jobs, women etc) just when 2nd edition was coming out. We formed a newer group of school chums and started over again using 1st ed.My twin brother raced down to the store to buy the 2nd ed players manual the day it was released; he figured that 2nd ed was just a collaboration of all the 1st ed rules finally into just a few books. He read it and came to the conclusion nothing really changed (there was this weird THACO thing ) After this we just bought the odd 2nd ed module to play and never really updated for years.Weird to remember that event, so excited to get the new rules and then we never used them.
I find it hard to believe the purpose was solely to generate cash, considering the amount of resistance the project received from the very start.
quote="MShipley88"]Actually, Tim, I wasn't answering you, so please don't take offense. I was just pointing out the irony of some of the charges against the 3.5 system.Instead of a rant, how about......It is really interesting to note the many different styles of play listed here on this strand.Some guys played without books and some guys played with a library in every player's geek bag.I also know of one Portland area campaign...originally based at the University of Portland...where the DM would not allow the players to roll any dice or even take their character sheets home! (The DM would call up his players mid-week and say, "Guess what! You made a level! And...I rolled an 8 for your hit points!") I re-visited their campaign in the Fall of 2001...it is still going strong, with the same players, plus their teenage kids! They are still using the 1st Edition AD&D rules. The DM will not even allow Unearthed Arcana.
I was not rich, but many of my friends were....in fact, they bought and gave books to me so I could DM. They had everything. I can imagine that there are groups that never even owned all three core AD&D rule books! If they had waited for me to buy anything we would have still been extrapolating from the Holmes Basic Set rules when we graduated from high school, three years later!
One of my own house rules was that no one was allowed to look at a Monster Manual at the game table. I saw games where the players were allowed to look up the monster they were fighting.
Probably the most epic series of adventures we did was all three D series modules back to back. We had a circle of 20+ gamers in our group, but not all of them could be present at any one time. During that series, we placed absent PC's on "the ethereal bench," where they watched from the ether sidelines as the others battled on. At any given game session there would be about 12 PC's in the action and another 12 or so on the bench.
I organized all of the Kuo Toans in the shrine into "divisions" and flung them at the players. Naturally, the PC's never even considered the possibility of simply making an offering to Blibdoolpoolp and just crossing the shrine in safety! I believe there were about a dozen PC deaths in the shrine mayhem!
My group relied a lot on the true sight spell to find things. Consequently, when the one guy in the campaign who was not using true sight looked briefly down a tertiary passage...shrugged...and turned back around....the party missed the major treasure horde in that module. It is still lying there, these 25 years later.
One of the PC's later became a god...it was either force him into the ranks of the deified or have him continue to plunder entire nation states across the Greyhawk world map. Tolindor, Elven God of Magic and Power-Mad Megalomania.Tolindor had to be retired after he led a party of PC's to raid the Abyss. Demogorgon died in my campain in 1981...and he is still dead.
A rival gaming group formed at our high school...slightly too young or much too nerdy to join our campaigns. They gamed in the "computer room," which (in 1979) was a converted janitor's closet! We were too ashamed to be seen with them! Irony.
Guys from our group went on to adult careers as (off the top of my head):
A number of us still gather every year for a long weekend based around the Super Bowl....which has become an excuse for a weekend away from wives and responsibilities...and a hell of a lot of fun. Last year, I was astonished and quite touched to learn that these highly accomplished men still regard me as the unofficial leader of the group.
and of course me who is probably the least successful of any of our regular game members!!!
gyg wrote:Though of course it should be said that the respect of your peers is priceless - and Mark and Badmike (in the respective quotes above) are certainly held in high esteem here.
bbarsh wrote:I don't know about you guys, but I can't imagine playing and not letting the players roll their own dice. If you can't trust the guys to be straight, why on earth are they in your group???
El Diablo Robotico wrote:Incidentally, the Ptolus 3.5 game that I'm running now has four PCs. Three are human, one is 1/2 elf. I've got a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a monk. All straight from the core PHB. We're not using anything but the three core books (and the Ptolus book, but I'm the only one with that one, and it's pure 100% setting material, no extra rules except city specific stuff).So it can be done.
MShipley88 wrote:I kinda wonder how Monte Cook could create an uber-campaign as his Malhavoc magnum opus...and then name it "Ptolus."
MShipley88 wrote:I kinda wonder how Monte Cook could create an uber-campaign as his Malhavoc magnum opus...and then name it "Ptolus."Sounds very much like a cartoon character spitting out seeds, or an itchy foot rash. "Ah, damn. I've got Ptolus under my toenails!"Mark
JohnGaunt wrote:Yes, he Ptolus it would be his final gaming product.
Badmike wrote:After much pleading I finally let the players read the description ofthe Drow in the back of G3 after they had finished it and were heading to D1....I regretted it, should have made them sweat it out not knowing!!!