I've been playing RPGs for years. Back when I was 10 years old, I got the Basic D&D boxed set, and set about teaching myself the rules of the game. I was always eager to play, but the friends I hung out with throughout much of grade school were much less inclined to gaming. They might have enjoyed the occasional adventure, but were never excited about any sort of long term campaign.
Things changed when I got into middle-school. Andy Collins (who works for Wizards of the Coast now, BTW) got a group of like-minded folks together and ran an epic AD&D campaign. I got to play a Magic-User, and the campaign covered the totality of the T 1-4 modules, the A 1-4 modules, and wrapping up with the GDQ1-7 modules. Now, previously, I had collected the A and GDQ modules as separates, but with the creation of The Temple of Elemental Evil, all these modules were combined into one mega campaign that took characters up from first level to near demi-god status.
Later on in high school, I got back to being the Game Master myself. I ran T 1-4 for another group of high-school friends, and when I went off to college, I ran it again there. I enjoyed the story and the setting, but the more I played, the more I realized the limitations of AD&D as presented. As I found other RPGs to play and compare it to, the more I was able to define those problems.
For all its talk about 'role playing', AD&D was only designed for combat. Period. The initial rules didn't even offer any skills outside of basic combat and spells. This was remedied slightly with the release of the Dungeoneers' Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide, but those skill lists were extremely primitive and lackluster.
There also was the basic imbalance of power in the character classes. At first level, Fighters and their sub-classes were all-powerful. Even then, they were the most two-dimensional of all classes. There wasn't even weapon specialization until Unearthed Arcana was released, and even those rules were fairly bare bones. So, as powerful as Fighters were compared to other classes at first, their entire adventuring career consisted solely of saying 'I attack' over and over again.
Other classes may have some special abilities to fall back on, but first level was all about surviving, not adventuring. The thought was the weakest of characters (namely Magic-Users), if they put in their time adventuring, would eventually become the strongest of characters. This didn't work out so well. True, Magic-Users ended up with some earth-shakingly powerful magic, but at the higher levels, all the monsters you meet ended up with resistances to spell results, or to Magic entirely, making everything you tried to do as a Magic-User useless.
Hands-down, my favorite role-playing game system is GURPS. It is very rule intensive compared to systems like AD&D, but I admire them for there approach. They set out to make a physical model of the gaming universe, and have all actions defined within that model. Characters could attempt anything, and there were rules for how to execute those actions. As much as I love this system, it is crushingly realistic. This takes away from the high-fantasy element lots of people like when playing games like AD&D. I may one day get to indulge my GURPS campaign dreams, but there is the need to give the players something they want to do, rather than being a tyrant of a game master.
I got back to looking at the AD&D rules and, as many have done before, attempted to tweak them into some semblance of order. I included rules that allowed for tactics, decision-making and character building. Rules that differentiated weapons, so there was a reason to use a flail instead of a longsword. Rules that provided a workable skill system that offered depth and knowledge to characters. Rules that looked at weapons as a means of defense as well as offense. Basically, rules that breathed life back into a stale system.
I believe I have managed to do so. The changes and tweaks I've made have drawn from the first, second and fourth editions of AD&D (including some rules from the Baldur's Gate AD&D video game) and elements from GURPS as well. I have expanded the skills and actions available to characters allowing everyone to have a character that can be engaged and of value at any level of experience, while keeping the high-fantasy feel and easy playability that were the hallmarks of the original system. In short, this is the version of AD&D that I've always wanted to play.
I bought many adventures with my allowance growing up, and wrote as many others. Many never got to see the light of day, and others were started never to be finished. I think I have everything in order to dust off these adventures and give them another go.
A while ago, I mentioned that autumn always feels like 'orc-killing weather'. The cold air, the fall colors, the low angle sunshine (when there is any) and the early dark in the evenings all seem somehow quite dramatic and slightly sinister, but in a good way. It always puts me in the mood for gaming, and this blog and the information contained within is the result of that mood for this year. Read on if you are interested, and let me know what you think. More posts to follow.
-Mike Keith
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