What were the improvements from 1st to 2nd Edition?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:05 pm

shadzar wrote: was this in the 1st edition DMG?

First Edition is in many ways the opposite of what people normally think D&D is supposed to be. While the combat portion of the game did get a lot of rules, there were a plethora of rules on almost everything else. Off of the top of my head they included things like ...

Types of insanity
Types of poisons
Types of diseases
Types of gems / precious items of art and treasure
Making your own holy water font

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:12 pm

Bobikus wrote:The 1E DMG has probably more tables than the 3.0 core books combined.

1E is basically table driven and these tables could be considered "broken linear tables" (combat, for example, had repeated values for 20, but was still basically linear). The extensive use of tables make it logical for most 1E players to adapt to non AD&D games that used non linear tables.

Another fun fact, you know the real reason why the DM screen was invented, right? Because the only way to have all those damn tables was to have them vertially in front of you. Otherwise it's like 4' from the DM to the battlemap. (Minis were required for 1E, even if monsters were normally just another d6 as thefacing rules practically required it. The DMG suggested only using official AD&D minis to ensure that the minis were the proper "scale.")

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:35 pm

tzor wrote:
shadzar wrote: was this in the 1st edition DMG?
First Edition is in many ways the opposite of what people normally think D&D is supposed to be. While the combat portion of the game did get a lot of rules, there were a plethora of rules on almost everything else. Off of the top of my head they included things like ...

Types of insanity
Types of poisons
Types of diseases
Types of gems / precious items of art and treasure
Making your own holy water font

Well yeah, it had a lot of weird stuff to simulate real world, but i just don't remember the diseases that was mentioned to be like that so was going to look.

One thing 2nd almost did was clean up those missing parts and incomplete thoughts. It got a bunch of them from the rush of putting out 1st edition where it wasn't very well organized and less proofread, but missed many others leaving things intact as written in 1st.

If not a magical disease, then i am wondering what the real problem was with the fact a monster didnt give it to someone, but was present.

It was the inclusion of the ideas that let you put in diseases such as the flu or something to add realism to the game where the times are based on such being deadly to people of those times with the exception of magical healing.

Easier to find is the Dragonlance movie where a lost arm is replaced, but the child not spared that shows the strengths and yet weaknesses of magical healing even.

So I just don't see a problem with a list of diseases that aren't contracted from monsters...

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:37 pm

I don't have my DMG with me right now...but it's towards the front. You've got acute and chronic diseases, and many, many types.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 5:21 pm

Doom wrote:I don't have my DMG with me right now...but it's towards the front. You've got acute and chronic diseases, and many, many types.

Ah yes, random diseases/parasitic infections, like i thought. Like getting diphtheria and such form just conditions of the times and stuff.

Not really a bad thing, but allows people to use those if they want that level of reality in the game

"Each month you may wish to check...."

And some did want them enough to create the netbooks of diseases, carnal knowledge, poisons, herbs, etc.

Its the things NPCs die from, so was included simply so you could apply it to PCs as well.

Something I actually like that the PCs are just people in the world, the thing that distinguishes them from others is that they are the protagonists, and go on the adventures and do things to shape the world, rather than stay at home, but are in part subject to the same things as everyone else, just have some better means to protect against them.

It means the PCs are special because they made the choice to be so, by adventuring they set themselves apart form the rest in a manner to do so, but are still just like everyone else in all other aspects. They aren't born the son of Zeus and are a demigod, but normal people that just aspired to be more and went after it taking the same risks and more as everyone else.

Its like random weather effects is also missing from second for the most part.

One thing I think many people should remember is that with the exception of 4th edition, and in part inclusion of it; most editions build on things of past editions thinking people are familiar with them to be able to include the parts left out from a previous edition like these diseases if needed.

Newer people are lost with them because they can see them as not present since they are not present in the books at hand and don't have access to the previous editions to tell things things do, did, or can exist.

So I think removing stuff about them may have been a bad thing. NWPs as a totally optional chapter was a bit of a waste, where it could have just detailed to players that things may be present such as NWP, diseases, weather conditions, etc and put a system in the DMG if needed to handle these things.

Like moving the attack matrices to the PHB in the form of THAC0 as mentioned, but not properly explaining it or how to use it, but just in part of "full disclosure" of the inner workings of the system.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 5:43 pm

Hey guys, look, it's shadzar, wanking off to old editions.

Hasn't that record been broken into dust by now?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 5:50 pm

Roy wrote:Hey guys, look, it's shadzar, wanking off to old editions.

Now behave, sure there was some bare boobies in 1E (I'm not going to tell you where; the nerds were probably staring more at the sphere of anihiliation) but to really wank off you need either the Arduim Grimore (complete with the image of Shandara the Castrator) or the three edition set of "All the World's Monsters." Terribly tame compared to the age of the internet, but pen and ink is still far more erotic. (No offense, but the photographic images in the Book of Erotic Fantasy want to make me vomit.)

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 7:31 pm

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 8:08 pm

What the goblin queen wasn't hot?

CCarter · Post by **CCarter** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 9:13 pm

tzor wrote:but to really wank off you need either the Arduim Grimore (complete with the image of Shandara the Castrator) or the three edition set of "All the World's Monsters."

Please post pics google can't seem to find it...

THAC0 wasn't in the 1e DMG, though according to ggroy elsewhere it predated 2nd ed. -appeared in some obscure book somewhere in the 1e era.

As far as diseases go, I think you roll about a 2% chance of disease (or similar) for each week you spend even a city, more if a dungeon or somewhere else moldy. Plus who knows what you'll pick up using the harlot encounter table.

Something else though: if you're a Thief, I believe your training costs also went up for 'bad' roleplaying - including not stealing from your friends. So yeah PCs are [somewhat literally] encouraged to backstab each other.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 9:37 pm

CCarter wrote:
tzor wrote:but to really wank off you need either the Arduim Grimore (complete with the image of Shandara the Castrator) or the three edition set of "All the World's Monsters."
Please post pics google can't seem to find it...

I wish I could, I seem to have misplaced my coppies.

CCarter wrote:THAC0 wasn't in the 1e DMG, though according to ggroy elsewhere it predated 2nd ed. -appeared in some obscure book somewhere in the 1e era.

THAC0 as a term appeared in the Dungeon and in UA. It is taken from the AC0 line of the Monster's To Hit Table in the DMG, if you really want to know. It was originally designed as a way for the DM to quickly calculate the number without having to constantly look it up on the grid. IIRC, monsters didn't get the repeated 20's although I'll look that up when I get home tonight.

cthulhudarren · Post by **cthulhudarren** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:40 pm

tzor wrote:
CCarter wrote:
tzor wrote:but to really wank off you need either the Arduim Grimore (complete with the image of Shandara the Castrator) or the three edition set of "All the World's Monsters."
Please post pics google can't seem to find it...
I wish I could, the pages of my copies are all stuck together.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:42 pm

I started playing 2E. I was trying to buy a DM screen one time, and I could only find a 1E one, and I said "good enough". It came with a (newer?) 1E adventure, and they had a portion devoted to explaining this newfangled THAC0 mechanic.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 1:28 am

This is kind of unrelated to the thread, but, before Internet 2.0 how did fans of D&D keep in touch? I'm asking more for a backwards evolution from 3E to the days of Chainmail, mind.

Moreover, what other kind of fuckery did Gary Gygax insert into 1E products aside from the monster/psionics fail?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 2:00 am

I basically just played with my cousins and occasionally friends from school. Of course, I was 14 at the time.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 3:04 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:This is kind of unrelated to the thread, but, before Internet 2.0 how did fans of D&D keep in touch?

PBM, magazines, phones, BBS/Fidonet, or just talk with people you knew directly for the most part.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 5:31 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:This is kind of unrelated to the thread, but, before Internet 2.0 how did fans of D&D keep in touch? I'm asking more for a backwards evolution from 3E to the days of Chainmail, mind.

Well if you want to go backwards, Internet 1.0 had email and list servers.

Before that, you had the RPGA network (which was a real network back then) and various conventions. That takes you back all the way to 1980 for the RPGA.

I don't know much before that (I started in 1980) but according to wiki, there were a variety of fanzines in attition to the official publications by TSR in the 70's.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 5:45 pm

tzor wrote:Well if you want to go backwards, Internet 1.0 had email and list servers.

Before that, you had the RPGA network (which was a real network back then) and various conventions. That takes you back all the way to 1980 for the RPGA.

I don't know much before that (I started in 1980) but according to wiki, there were a variety of fanzines in attition to the official publications by TSR in the 70's.

The Letters column in Dragon magazine was sort of a precursor to D&D internet message boards (complete with flame wars, trolls, etc.).