...who painted in OIL, not on a computer screen. Somehow, it felt different.
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Back in my day, the illustrations in the main three books were clearly done by someone's eleven year old nephew.
Said nephew was not an artistic prodigy.
We had actual rules for spells that could affect an area several miles across...or heal 200 people
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Back in my day, if you encountered a goofy-looking creature down in the dungeon, you ran like hell.
Back in my day, there was Dungeons. And Dragons. In a small red box, or in a small blue box.
Back in my day, there wasn't any namby-pamby "Perception check." You had to describe how you were looking for a secret door and if you found it, how you were trying to open it, by trial and error.
And you liked it!
Back in my day we tracked our spell components, and we role-played going into the woods to collect insects from under rocks...
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Back in my day, your Magic User cast his one Sleep spell for the day, and then spent the rest of the session trying to not get killed.
Back in my day if clerics used anything pointy they lost their class abilities.
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Back in MY day, clerics didn't GET their class abilities until second level.
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Back in my day, rogues were thieves and and sneak attack was backstabbing. None of this PC (politically correct) language. We told it like it was.
And by gum, we liked it.
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Back in my day, the Bard class was an elaborate combination of fighter, thief, and druid, and the price of admission was no ability score under ten, and several at 15 or better.
These were the days before point buy, when a generous DM was the one who let you roll 4d6 and drop the lowest and place them in any order you liked. For most it was 3d6 in order.
I never actually saw anybody play a 1st ed Bard.
Ahh yes the 3d6 in order method of stat generation. It lead to my cousin playing a cleric with a wis of 9. It was one of his best characters and one of only two to survive castle Ravenloft.
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Well, that's because (back in my day) your stats didn't really matter that much. Strength added to to hit and damage, dex added to your AC (regardless of how heavy your armor was), and con added to your hit points. Stats didn't start giving bonuses until 15 or higher. Mostly, stats were just benchmarks to get into certain classes, so a wisdom 9 cleric was no better or worse a cleric than one with an 18 wisdom.
Remember Paladins having to have a 17+ charisma, a stat that did nobody any good under any circumstance?
Yep another big thing from back in the day. Paladins were restricted to humans only and you damn near had to have a 17 plus in almost every stat in order to qualify.
*Edit I don't remember the exact prereqs for the paladin but I do remember them being almost impossible to roll.*
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Paladin: Str 12, Int 9, Wis 13, Dex 6, Con 9, Cha 17
An Illusionist needed a 15 Int and a 16 Dex (?).
According to a chart on this page , using the 3d6 method you would roll and entirely unusable stat set 38% of the time.
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Back in my day, making your own magic items drained your Constitution, and you couldn't buy them in stores.
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Back in my day, the only hamsters you could find were from outer space! And they were huuuuge!!!
Except when they weren't.
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Back in my day, Find Familiar was a spell, which familiar you got was entirely random, and the only benefit was 2-4 extra hit points.
If your familiar got killed, your ass was grass, because you permanently lost DOUBLE the amount of hit points you gained. This would certainly kill you at low levels, and would be take a big bite out of your HP total (remember d4 hit dice?) at any level.
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Back in my day, néophyte players would say "This is D&D? I'm pretending to be a what? Ok, I wait behind everyone else and just see what happens." Now neophyte players say "So this is D&D. Cool. I'll be a Drow half dragon Necromancer. Can I raise my zombie army now?"
- Reggie (actual observations - 30 years apart)
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Back in my day, when wights showed up, you ran.
Later, you would ask the DM why he was being a dick.
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Back in my day, some spells were quicker to cast, and some weapons took longer to use.
You want to cast that summon spell? You better hope nobody hits you during your one round casting time. Whipping out a 1CT Magic Missile might be safer.
Nice two-handed sword. Hope you don't mind going dead last every turn swinging that Cadillac around.
Man, they need to bring that system back. Might curb the systemic supremacy of two handed weapons somewhat.
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Back in my day the most dangerous thing you could do was take an overland journey.
GM: You are walking through the woods, ten miles north of town. ...rolls to check for wandering monsters... Oooh! An encounter! You're attacked by... rolls on the Wandering Monster table... 2 green dragons! Roll for initiative!
Players: GAAAHHH!! We're only third level! Run away!
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Nononononono. The most dangerous thing (by far) was takinh a late night stroll in a city. Those tables had dragons, demons, devils and LICHES. Sure, cities today can be tough... but...
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Back in my day, every low level fighter worth his onions carried a back up blunt weapon for when skeletons attacked.
And heavy maces only did 1d6.
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Back in my day, if you wanted a little *ahem* action in the city, your GM rolled on the Random Harlot Encounter Table.
Back in my day, every low level fighter worth his onions carried a back up blunt weapon for when skeletons attacked.
And heavy maces only did 1d6.
Back in my day, every low-level fighter carried a bag of onions just in case.
We rolled our dice outside...
In the snow.....
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Yep another big thing from back in the day. Paladins were restricted to humans only and you damn near had to have a 17 plus in almost every stat in order to qualify.
*Edit I don't remember the exact prereqs for the paladin but I do remember them being almost impossible to roll.*
17 for Charisma and a few other high stats in Strength, Wisdom, and constitution.
Back in my day, every low-level fighter carried a bag of onions just in case.
Back in my day, every low level fighter worth his onions carried a back up blunt weapon for when skeletons attacked.
And heavy maces only did 1d6.
Pretty sure that was wolfsbane. And pitons came in handy more than I would care to describe.
Of course, back in my day if the Dungeon Master didn't read the commas correctly, the minotaur's treasure consisted of...hey wait, where's my old copy of The Keep on the Borderlands? Dang it, lent it to my brother to play with his kids.
Suffice to say, misreading the treasure led to a haul in the millions of gp. Happy daze. If only we could spend it somewhere other than the Keep. Maybe the Castellan won't tax us too much?
There were other inconsistencies, mostly due to the fact that the DM was consulting the DMG while we were playing Basic DnD...
We rolled our dice outside...
In the snow.....
Uphill both ways...
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Back in my day, critical hits were an alternate system.
Dragon Magazine could be counted on to periodically publish a punishing critical hit location chart. All the options sounded cool...
...until you realized that they applied to you too.
Back in my day, my grandmother tried to rebuke the devil from one of my friends during a game session.
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Back in my day, the devil rebuked my grandmother during a gaming session.
Back in my day, some people's parents freaked out that we were playing Dungeons and Dragons... so we switched to Gamma World for a while.
Back in my day, Dralasites were king.
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Back in my day, we didn't have any of this limited DR. You didn't pack a backup silver weapon you weren't hurting that werewolf that was eating your face. And back in my day we didn't need these Lovecraftian Horrorz to put the fear of the DM into players. We had vampires and ghosts and wraiths which did the job just fine. And on that note, we didn't have dungeons that had to advertise that they were hard, THEY WERE ALL HARD!
Back in my day, we started swinging a halberd, and the blow still hasn't landed yet.
Back in my day, all weapons did 1d6 damage.
Back in my day, there were random prostitutes of a number of different types on the streets of fantasy cities.
Harlots, Sissyl; random harlots. :)
Back in my day, Dragon Magazine was stapled instead of perfect bound. No, wait, back in my day, Dragon Magazine was printed instead of an e-zine. No, wait again, back in my day dragon my was an e-zine instead of an app.
This thread makes me feel old and tired, like I've had too many days. :(
We had vending machines as monsters, and they were official too!
