Here's yet another go at designing a nostalgia-themed WotC D&D game:

Companies like Disney or Marvel are continually reprinting their old archived illustrations. D&D has so far had the "Art of.." books, facsimile editions a decade ago, & more recently "Thirty Years of Adventure."

The following proposal is for a beer-&-pretzels game, a vehicle for artwork reprinted or recreated from D&D products dating to 1971-1981. It also functions as an introductory starter for both the RPG & Miniatures Game of the current D&D line. Two of the publisher's interests are served- generating new income from old material, & getting players new to the current game started on the path to repeated buying.

Dungeons & Dragons, the Eldritch Edition by Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson & many others, for 2-6 players ages teen-800

A boxed set containing a rules booklet, one double-sided map, dice, & six minis/cards in the current format. The rules, written with brevity, cover a boardgame, an RPG, & a miniatures wargame; all have scenarios for both sides of the map.

Art for the box front is taken from Mattel's D&D Computer Labyrinth Game 1981; the back is the Greyhawk 1980 folio. The booklet's front cover is the D&D 1977 box art; a blank character sheet is on the back.  Classic B/W line illustrations fill the volume, which is in sans-serif font.

Minis are derived from the most iconic illustrations. To avoid issue with current rules, the alignment given on all cards is "Any." For the boardgame, players roll 3D6 & play the figure indicated:
3-7 Wizard - TSR logo 1978-1980; 1D4 combat damage with dagger
8-10 Evil High Priest - Swords & Spells 1976 p. 35; 1D6 damage
11 Succubus - Monster Manual 1977 p.18; 1D8 damage
12-15 Warrior - Men & Magic 1975 cover; 1D10 damage
16-17 Lizardman with Swiss Halberd -  TSR logo 1976-1978; 1D12 damage
18 Red Dragon - a juvenile/adolescent version of the one on the D&D 1977 box art, also resembling the mini from the Mattel 1981 CLG. Like the Black Dragon included with the D&D 2004 Basic Set, it's on a small base for flexibility of play; 1D20 damage

One side of the map is a re-drawn World of Greyhawk 1980, with a few alterations. The hexes are sized to accommodate the minis. The terrain is drawn to fit inside the hexes, keyed to movement rules from Outdoor Survival 1972. The Blackmoor region resembles Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign 1977. Major sites from OD&D/AD&D modules are marked. The other side is from Dungeon! 1976. The irregular squares happen to already be the right size for modern minis, re-drawn to allow larger rooms & passages.

When played on the Greyhawk map, the boardgame is based on The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures 1974 pp. 14-20, & the Jousting Matrix from p. 42 of Chainmail 1971. The essentials of Outdoor Survival are adapted to simplified D&D mechanics- e.g. hit point damage replaces the Dying Hiker chits. Heavily-revised boardgame rules for the Dungeon! map are given, also conformed to D&D mechanics, with encounter tables in the booklet replacing cards.

The RPG component reflects the current basic game, which shows how to use the supplied characters but not PC generation. Text on how to role-play is quoted straight from Gygax. Included are a few oddball but memorable rules, such as the technique of subduing Dragons from Monsters & Treasure 1974 pp. 12-13, & the chart of five alignments from D&D 1977 p. 8. The character sheet is in the style of the D&D 1980 version, with space for a sketch. Other spaces are for record-keeping during the game, to be used with the supplied cards.

A key for RPG use with the Dungeon! map is taken from OD&D or Geomorph encounters & various sample dungeons like Zenopus, but it's identified as Castle Greyhawk. Traveling between dungeons involves the Greyhawk side of the map. One mini represents the entire party as they try & make it without starving. An abbreviated Gazeteer is included, as well as maps & encounters for the City of Greyhawk & the Village of Blackmoor.

Rules for the wargame component are those of the current minis game, limited to situations possible in the scenarios. The Dungeon! map is used for a sapper-oriented contest like Arneson's earliest underground battles. The Greyhawk map is used for strategic warfare, with each figure representing units.

stumbling tiger wrote:Looks like some early adopters already have their copies of the 4E rules, and are posting new rules from the frontier for the benefit of the rest of us.  

Going from these reports, 4E has not much in common with even 3.5, and any apparent similarities to AD&D are purely coincidental.

Caveat:
About these rules paraphrases, I have to confess I only understand about one or two words per sentence.

Actually, what we're reading there is about terminology.

Character archetypes have been around for some time in 3.5...as prestige classes and different combinations of feats.

The basic question is not about the chrome wheels, Corinthian leather seats or a suicide knob on the steering wheel....the basic question is about the engine:

IF  1=5%   and   strength = 3d6   and  "to hit" = x   and  "damage" = "hit points"  then the engine is essentially unchanged and it's the same game.

I posted an illustrated combat example in another post.

Some conclusions

1) The combat system seems like a really good game.
2) The combat system is not really D&D anymore
3) The character class feel more iconic than any previous edition including OD&D. I know that sounds like heresy but a paladin felt like a palidan and so on.
4) The character are less customizable than 3rd edition system of multi-classing.

The two big buy-ins are the powers/combat system and the reduced customization compared to 3rd edition. If the player doesn't like either of those two they are not using 4th edition.

Well I am planning on reading the new books, may even try out a game or two.  

I suspect that I will not updgrade from 3.5 and 1st/2nd ed for quite some time or maybe never

If 3.0/3.5 is D&D and 4e is NOT D&D, then I don't want to play D&D. I had a chance to play this weekend through part of one of the delves at the local con. 4e had something that I never found with 3x: fun.

It's a different game than OD&D/AD&D, which I still prefer, but it definitely felt like D&D and it was a heck of a lot of fun, which 2e and 3x were never able to capture.

I'm only sad that I know that all of the splat books and 3e no need to make choices stuff is coming, but until then I'll definitely try and find a 4e game to play on a regular basis.

sauromatian wrote:PLAYER: My Dragonborn Pudthumper Paladin has +16 on all Discombobulation rolls, based on a natural logarithm of my STR + my horoscope. It's from a splat book I bought for $39.95 & spent 14 hours deciphering.

DM: Sure, okay. Roll a D20.. Oh, too bad.

Guess the guy should have used his "dragon breath" instead...

Busman wrote:If 3.0/3.5 is D&D and 4e is NOT D&D, then I don't want to play D&D. I had a chance to play this weekend through part of one of the delves at the local con. 4e had something that I never found with 3x: fun.

It's a different game than OD&D/AD&D, which I still prefer, but it definitely felt like D&D and it was a heck of a lot of fun, which 2e and 3x were never able to capture.

I'm only sad that I know that all of the splat books and 3e no need to make choices stuff is coming, but until then I'll definitely try and find a 4e game to play on a regular basis.

Please elaborate. What was the main difference between 3 and 4 that made it more fun?

Yeh the splat books always come, like a herald of doom, to overly complicate the game, it's inevitable.

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:Please elaborate. What was the main difference between 3 and 4 that made it more fun?

I've only attempted to play 3.5 once, I played 3 a good dozen times or more and even ran a small game that lasted 3-4 sessions.

3x continued down the path that AD&D accidentally started and 2e grabbed with both hands: the right way to play. I discouraged this when I ran the game, but when you play with a mixed group, you have to spend time understanding the game and playing well in someone else's group. 3e made me tired. If I have to listen to one more person talk about their "build" I may lost my last points of Sanity. It felt like work to play the game. Prepping monster blocks, planning builds, it just felt like a chore to me.

4e is relatively quick, I spent my "downtime" thinking about what I was going to do next, which made the time go by quickly. Players seemed unblocked, somewhat, from the right way to play and innovated a little bit while we were playing (it could be that they didn't have enough exposure to know how to "play it right"). I'm certainly willing to accept that the pre-gen'd characters, the well schooled DMs (they'd clearly run the delves many times and knew it well), and the newness and non-splatbookiness made it much more fun.

I really hope that WotC sticks to their guns and don't abandon their current tack on multi-classing and core classes. It's exactly the half-orc/elf/dragon/monk/demigod/rat with 2 levels in 19 different Prestige Classes that made me really nuts about 3x. It was all about coming up with a character that was overpowered under the rules. Not having to make choices makes a game not a game, but an exercise. It just made me tired.

I'll still most likely play OD&D or AD&D when I'm able to convince a regular group to play again, but I'll look for a 4e group as well, I think it will be fun, until it isn't anymore.

Badmike wrote:
That's why I starting using the hombrew campaign over 10 years ago  Players know what they know, and not much else.  Particularly when it comes to unique monsters, spells, character classes, etc. I can't tell you all the guys who gamed with us who were disapponted we didn't use a particular setting because they had one favorite character class they had gotten from a splat book that was a living tank.....

Mike B.

i hear you on that. when i last played as a player, we did U1, which was on the coast of this continent, that basically, was based on a crumbling roman empire. it was actually very cool.

Al