It’s amazing how quickly after I have gotten back to “AD&D” that is a really a new edition of the game given the number of house rules that I use. Fundamentally, some of this is just a reflection of how much of “how the game was played” was actually already houseruled by either myself or had been by the DM that I had played with.
I recently took a much-needed vacation to Jamaica, and during that I read “Of Dice and Men” by David M. Ewalt (which was not particularly interesting for me as a long term gamer) but also The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Thier Identity and Playing At The World Vol. 1: The Invention of Dungeon & Dragons both by Jon Peterson which I found much more interesting given that both essentially “end” aright around when I started gaming. So it was great insight into the way I played because I was often playing with people directly coming out of that early framework of play D&D and AD&D.
It also gave me some nice framing about how different expectations are of TTRPG’s now vs. then, and the just overall willingness to houserule almost anything (heck, the need to houserule so many things). One of the big debates covered prompted me to ask my gaming group when the last time they had used Intelligence or Wisdom for their characters outside of a couple of very specific circumstances because I’m really debating just removing them – for exactly the same reasons that people were debating the question 40-50 years ago.
I’m also really debating dropping the whole Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, etc system of alignments for pretty much the same reasons that people have dropped them for years now – but keeping the idea of an Alignment more in keeping with the original flavor of the game and the more Moorcockian or Andersonian notion of “Aligned to a cosmic force” like Order or Chaos.
Heck, I’m even debating switching from AD&D “to hit tables” and moving to a level-based bonus to hit vs. straight AC in the same way that 3e D&D+ did. I already switched to ascending AC when we picked up AD&D again because it was arguably much simpler, I’m not sure holding onto the tables from the DMG is adding anything to the gaming experience.
Something I haven’t mentioned or discussed here is that I fundamentally revamped how spell initiative works for my game – and in a way that all my players found much more accessible than the official segment-based system. There are now four “casting times” – Instant, Fast, Slow, and Ritual.
Ritual Spells cannot be cast during combat period, Slow spells start on Initiative and take effect at the end of the round (and can be disrupted by combat), Fast spells are cast and take effect on Initiative (and can be disrupted), Instant spells are also cast and take effect on Initiative but cannot be disrupted. Very few spells are Instant, there’s some that are Fast (mostly lower level spells), and the majority are Slow – with a large minority that are Ritual.
Much, much clearer (and playable) than the official rules of 1e or 2e AD&D.
Fleur du mal 