Cutting Corners for Hirelings and Henchmen

LabLord Creator and Record Sheet

We didn't even name our characters until they reached 2nd level.

The DM at the blackboard was Corbin. Take away his glasses and shoes and he looked exactly like the centaur from the cover of the original Monster Manual. Corbin would stand in front of a blackboard like a professor and run enormous dungeon crawls with 15 or 20 players at a time. A few of the players had high-level characters (as in, level 5 or so). The rest of us played 1st- and 2nd-level henchmen -- NPCs, essentially -- and we died like flies. We didn't even name our characters until they reached 2nd level. It was nothing to burn through two or three characters in an afternoon. Your goal was to live long enough to become a real member of the adventuring party and not just another nameless corpse on the heap. The only characters who got respect from the higher-level PCs were clerics. As long as you had a healing spell, you were useful. Otherwise, there was no pity in Corbin's dungeons. Low-level characters were there to open doors, peek around corners, and walk down corridors ahead of the heroes, poking everything within reach with a 10-foot pole.

- Steve Winter, Editor for the AD&D 2nd on his first D&D campaign.

Shields.

FACT: Shields are undervalued.

Differences between 1st & 2nd Edition AD&D

Difference between 1E & 2E

But, here's the thing. I dig 4E & always felt that 3.x was more Rolemaster than D&D. I missed OD&D, AD&D 1E, BECMI, B/X all of that. C&C is cool, but misses the mark for me. I used to vehemently disagree with ANYONE who felt that Feats & Powers stifle roleplaying. But I dont now. Its not intended in design, but if you make a Feat, to balance you can't let someone narrate that effect. Its not fair to the person who took the feat. And Powers, IMHO are cool & flashy, but instead of focusing on doing cool stuff our group just resource manages our abilities. Now we're all spellcasters. The ideal thing is that we can choose all these different rules that are, originated from, or were inspired by these different editions of D&D or Chainmail. So, our group has played 4E for awhile now & we're looking at trying something less constrained, in our humble opinion. We want to let our imaginations, not Feats or Powers guide our fates. I think 4E is whats best to bring younger players in. Its slick & has terms they understand. I'm apparently a newly formed grognard, because I want to say "I'm doing X." And my DM can say well then add your Level or don't add your Level & let's see what happens, not look over my sheet for the Feat it requires or see which Power to use next.

On rpg.net, regarding "AD&D 3rd Edition"

Mind = Blown

Go suck on your THAC0

Thieves and Traps

"One of the interesting peculiarities about the Supplement I (and Holmes) thief class is that, while it possesses a "remove traps" ability, it does not possess a "find traps" ability, which wasn't introduced until the AD&D Players Handbook and also adopted by the Moldvay rules. (As an aside, it's worth noting that the Cook/Marsh Expert Rulebook lists only "remove traps" as a thief ability on its class tables, although one presumes this is just an editorial glitch). I surmise that the thief lacked an explicit "find traps" ability, since it was simply assumed they had the same chance to find them while searching as any other character class (1 in 6). Thus, thieves were adept only at overcoming traps once found but lacked any special skill in finding them."

From Grognardia

Old School Maps with Excel

http://www.gnomestew.com/tools-for-gms/mapping-for-the-rest-of-us

Initiative and Movement

"In a nutshell, it's an approach that uses variable action speed combined with a cyclic initiative queue to serve as a "positioning" mechanic; i.e., instead of depending on your position on a battlemat, the tactical subsystems are designed to depend on your position in the queue. Most of your options revolve around fiddling with the initiative order; for example, instead of having effects that slide your opponent around the battlefield, you have effects that mess with their position in the queue, generally to their detriment. This is how most turn-based CRPGs out of the last fifteen years have handled tactical positioning."

Consider this stolen for d20Shawn 6th Edition

From Dwimmermount:

"I'll also note that the "Dave Arneson rule" for converting gold into XP is working beautifully. I only give XP on treasure that is spent. This means that every time they find gold or gems or whatever in the dungeon, they have to use it to buy things for themselves, whether they be scrolls, new gear, hirelings, or just a night out on the town if they want to gain experience points from them. This has served two purposes: 1) They must return to Adamas if they want to spend big sums of money and 2) They are perpetually poor. I am very satisfied with this, as I am with the campaign in general -- an excellent session overall."