I just spent about twelve hours playing a game of 1st edition AD&D, in honor of the recently-late Gary Gygax. (For the two or three of you on this flist who haven't heard, he's the original creator of D&D, and he died not too long ago. Webcomics have also noted this.)

I'd never actually played 1e before. When I first started picking up sourcebooks, I suppose it was a little over halfway through the 2e era... such books as Combat&Tactics, the somewhat cheesier Spells&Magic, and the beyond-the-pale-cheesy Skills&Powers were fairly new on the shelves, as I recall. 1e, as it turns out, is pretty similar to 2e on the whole (above extra books aside.) There're differences, but they're far closer to each other than either is to 3.x, or any of the three to 4. (I am looking forward to 4. It looks intriguing!)

The idea behind this tribute was to be as true as possible to the old-style "Gygaxian" gaming experience. A big dungeon with pretty straightforward monsters and treasure, not a terribly large amount of roleplaying, and--in big contrast to how campaigns tend to work today--easy and permanent death. (Well, if any of us had ever made enough money to afford a Raise Dead spell, the permanent death thing might've been offset a bit, but as it was, we tended to stay dead when we died. I was the only person whose character never did.)

In keeping with this "traditional" gaming atmosphere, I decided to pick the most stereotypical foods I could think of to bring with me to the table: Cheetos and Mountain Dew. There was also beer, and, for some reason, friggin mead. (Not exactly typical gaming stuff, mead, but I guess they figured it was relevant because it was what actually got served sometimes in such ancient taverns of yore? Heheh. It was alright, but if I want really sweet wine-like stuff, I'd prefer plum wine.) On the whole, I think it was the most unhealthy day worth of food and drink that I've had in months. I'm not terribly anxious to repeat it!

The game itself was simple in some ways, and needlessly complex in others. Weird mix. Some rules were simple due to not having been developed yet as they are in the more recent editions. This was good and bad--the upshot was that it made combat progress very quickly compared to how it is in 3rd ed. Certain bits of the rules had complexity I've never seen since, though, such as the large table of bonuses/penalties that weapons get on various different armor classes. We just kinda ignored that. Some rules, although not really complex, were downright weird after playing 3e. Level caps on nonhumans was perhaps the most annoying during character creation--for no reason, since none of us managed to level beyond 4 anyway, but it was kinda conceptually weird. Dwarven fighters were limited to level 9. That... that's what dwarves do, man! I think Elven magic-users (now known as wizards) might've been capped at 11. The only non-humans that could be clerics were half-elves and half-orcs, which were capped at a whopping 5 and 4, respectively. (That's right, no PC dwarven clerics allowed, even though that's kind of a gaming mainstay now. NPC dwarf clerics were capped at 8.)

Oh yeah, half-orcs were in the core book in 1e. Huh!~ That was one thing which was removed in 2e, and put back in in 3e. Monks, too. Some of the classes were quite different--Ranger, for example, started with two hit dice at first level for no particularly good reason, and were a generally quite overpowered class. Both of the other guys playing were rangers at one point or another, although in one case, it was a short-lived character. That guy died a lot. I was the only one that didn't, really; my little dwarf thief lived all the way from his humble beginnings (only 3 hp), to the end of the day at 4th level. Had some close calls, too! Once I was the last one left alive against two orcs, and I was at two hit points. I hid, backstabbed one, and killed it, and then the other hit me before I could attack it too. I thought I was gone, then the DM rolls the damage... 1. I had 2 hp, and he rolls 1. I counterattack and finish it off, then grab my unconscious comrade and head straight back for town.

1e, on the whole, was an fun retro experience to have, but it's not something I'd want to make a campaign out of. The other guys felt the same. 3e is much more interesting to play--I like being able to keep a character, invest time into making his/her personality, and plan out class/feat/skill progression and stuff... none of which really works well in 1e. 3e has a lot more potential for character growth and depth, as well as for a wider variety of options... whereas 1e just straight up says things like, "No halfling clerics!"

Still, though, that said, I thought about some of the stuff that existed before 1e came out, and it seems incredibly innovative for its time. Gygax definitely deserves his due! I've never actually played nor seen the Chainmail game that directly spawned D&D, but just in general the idea of these early systems people came up with... the idea, for example, that you move however far you want in a dungeon instead of simply rolling a die and arbitrarily moving that many spaces around a game board. (Why do I have to pass Marven Gardens? Can't I just stop my car there?) It was pretty amazing stuff! And it's shaped all the RPGs that've come out since, in a huge way.

Speaking of which,

I better go log into WoW and make sure nothing's fallen out of my mailbox. I think things were pretty close to it, a couple days ago...