So thee ghee what is the deal with all of the nostalgia tripping over AD&D?

So thee ghee what is the deal with all of the nostalgia tripping over AD&D?
It's horribly dated and the mechanics are broken to all hell.
>No balance.
>Caster Superiority
Srsy I expected more from you.

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To be honest, I don't get the whole OSR trend, but hey, people must like it and they play it, so who am I to doubt them?

Yes, but the adventure modules were really fun and the settings were nice.

Most of /osrg/ prefer B/X to AD&D, and half of them don't consider 2e to be OSR.

It *is* balanced, mostly through the lack of a unified xp table.
"Stronger" classes (Paladins, etc.) level slower.

OSR's masturbation of "muh imbalance!" is about how party members have wildly varied levels.
... which has more to do with rerolling Lv.1s after death than with anything else.

>Caster Superiority
Top kek, good sir.
Magic-Users are really, really shit in OSR. Even at high levels!
youtube.com/watch?v=7UjXi1HKjms
You want a Magic-User in your party, but you don't want to be the Magic-User.

In AD&D (and basic and OD&D) the expectation is that you avoid combat wherever possible, because you get XP for treasure recovered, and XP for killing monsters is puny and not worth the risk in a severely lethal system where TPKs are not a curiousity but a strong risk.
As such, the system is based around the party being the main unit. Combat balance is not important in a game that's about dungeon crawling, not combat.
And casters are not as superior as you think. Saves get easier to make as you level up, and magic users don't get to increase difficulty on their saves, ever. Add in spell interruption (with no concentration checks) and the inability to move yourself or retarget your spells after declaring them at the start of a round, and wizards are tricky to play effectively. You need a wall of allies between you and the enemy in order to get your spell off in the first place.
Overall, the mechanics of early D&D were developed organically and playtested to hell and back to an extent that's rarely done today; mechanics were selected that produced the required result at the table, regardless of whether they looked uniform or "made sense" -- and "common sense" is an enemy of good game design, IMO.

>Add in spell interruption
You forgot that spells give initiative penalties.

Oh yeah, I did. I'm a Basic guy through-and-through, and haven't been into Advanced in a long time.

AD&D is a fairly simple system to run that still preserves a lot of the old Sword and Sorcery feel of the game.

That's pretty much the gist of why I like it.

>no balance

Better than latter editions really. Even 4th edition had more problems due to the central focus of character building.

>Yes, but the adventure modules were really fun and the settings were nice.
A lot of this. 90% of the work and writing went into setting instead of worrying about class and features.

You can of course run newer systems using older modules which is what I do. But if I had to choose between Setting vs Class balance. Setting all the time wins.

>You want a Magic-User in your party, but you don't want to be the Magic-User.

I'm pretty sure Gary thought the magic users were a bit OP actually.

By the time D&D 3e came out, AD&D fags were old enough to realize that it was shit, so they stuck to the thing they had fun with before.

Did you even watch the video?

There's a certain amount of caster superiority not necessarily in them being invulnerable demigods ala 3rd edition, but more in the fact that with their toolkit of abilities, they're likely to become the central focus of the game at later levels and start to become the primary problem solvers of the team. The high level party becomes the magic users plus that guy who soaks up hits for them and the poor, useless thief.

>engaging in skirmishes
>at name level

That's the point when your Fighter has an army, your Magic User has a tower and various summons and apprentices, and your Thief has his very own Thieves' Guild to do espionage and information gathering for the party. Conventional play is over by then, you need mass combat rules like Chainmail, Warmachine, or BattleSystem.

>gee it's totally balanced if you just don't use the game at all

Shut the fuck up. Some people want to slay demons and plunder hell.

The name levels are the stupidest part of the game by far.

No spells for level up, your spell list is at the mercy of the referee.
That's not to say you won't get good spells, but you don't get every spell on your wish list.

>but more in the fact that with their toolkit of abilities, they're [...] the primary problem solvers of the team
High level MUs mostly have situational or underwhelming crap.
They have more tools to lean on than non-MUs, but still use their inventory for most of their 'clever problem solving'

>Shut the fuck up.
You don't win arguments by name calling and acting like a child. Nor do you win arguments with personal opinions. I understand this is Veeky Forums and we all call each other faggots and niggers, but no one's going to take you seriously when you add emotion into your argument like a woman.

>The name levels are the stupidest part of the game by far.
Name levels is where you cashed in your character for extra infrastructure in your group's CHAINMAIL campaign, then rolled a new dude at Level 1

>No spells for level up, your spell list is at the mercy of the referee.

Treasure tables will ensure that they'll come across no shortage of scrolls.

High level MUs mostly have situational or underwhelming crap.

Invisibility, fly, teleport, are not fucking situational.

Nobody is going to take you seriously if you act like a thin skinned pussy. You say stupid shit, you get told to shut the fuck up. Your argument as literally "it's balanced if you don't play the game" which is fucking retarded.

Next time, don't be such a little bitch when you say something stupid. How about that?

Exactly. It's not well balanced, because it wasn't heavily tested, because nobody in the early play groups felt like going on when they'd basically won the dungeon game. They all felt the game was best when it was about the struggle to get up there.
D&D has never done high level shit very well, in any edition, though, so complaining that old D&D didn't is kind of shooting fish in a barrel and claiming to be a skilled marksman.

Anyone who has to rely on name-calling as part of their argument loses credibility. You lose at RPG discourse.

>implying I care about victory

What I'm here for is dialectic, not debate. The advancement of truth is what matters, not what you think of me.

Fly is situational, Teleport can be lethal (read: will be, if overused), Invisibility is a solid spell.

>Next time, don't be such a little bitch when you say something stupid. How about that?
Why thank you for the (You) mister person behind a computer screen. Did your mother not love you as a child? Is that why you're so mad?Maybe it's because you're a lover of cuckold porn but your girlfriend doesn't want to fuck a nigger, or maybe because you know that you would be beaten to death because we're posting on a Japanese Lolicon loving board?

>he thinks I'm mad

Kek. Projection much?

Thank you for another (You) and have another good man. It's hard for me to know who's bitching and who's shit posting. However, I still stand on the fact that in your mind, AD&D is a pile of shit, while I prefer AD&D (with it's problems) more so then the other editions of D&D.

It's not that TSR didn't try to do High Levels well, it's that High Levels are thematically opposed to the intended gameplay.
Shooing people away and expecting retirement is about the best they could do.
youtube.com/watch?v=X9vECzikqpY

>taking bait

>AD&D is a pile of shit

Assumptions much? I like AD&D.

Oh no, I need to check my privilege because I made an assumption about someone on a website that's filled with double niggers and child rapist wannabes. Oh what shall I ever do?

>still believes dialectic advances truth
>isurehopeyouhegeliansdontdothis.journal

You're both coming off as frothing-in-the-mouth mad

Balance is overrated. You'll find the best game balance through randomization, not excessive rules and shit.

Also, the whole modern idea of rolling up some anime power hero is lame. OSR had you starting as a puny nobody and working your way up.

You aren't anime power hero at level 1 in any DnD edition

I got the (You)'s I needed for the day, so I'm happy. I don't know about the other fellow though. Thank you for the other (You) too, by the way good sir

What he said. I have had characters getting shredded by wolves in 3 separate games 1 of which being in a different setting. Level 1 is bad man.

DARK SUN, RAVENLOFT, AND PLANESCAPE NIGAAAA

No-one really likes AD&D. B/X or BECM (but not I) are what people play, or somewhat cleaned up retroclones.

Simply put, later editions of D&D feel too bland and individual-player-character centric to me.

AD&D seemed to have an understanding of a character's place in the world, instead of as a singular unit of minmaxing.

I read through AD&D supplements and the rich detail they go into is unlike future D&D products, I get a feel for it as a Roleplaying Game focused on Dungeon Crawling and Adventuring, instead of a Dungeon Crawling game with some Adventuring & Roleplaying.

Hell, even magical item descriptions are more creative and have non-statistic bonuses and uses that are inapplicable in a purely rules context.

If I wanted a game that was individual-player-character focused, I would play a White Wolf game like Mage or Exalted, since there's the implication that it's non-dungeon focused to drive the players into RP goals.

Honestly, I don't get why people even play D&D nowadays. WHF is far more polished and allowing for better characters to be created, be they powerful heroes or coal burners. Also it has actually fun spells, unlike those in any D&D edition.