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<H1>[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: [MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: "Adam J. Thornton" <<A HREF="mailto:adam#phoenix,Princeton.EDU">adam#phoenix,Princeton.EDU</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 13:12:56 -0400</LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
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<PRE>
On Fri, Sep 25, 1998 at 09:54:59PM -0700, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
[fascinating examples of REALLY major surgery to AD&D snips]
> As another aside (and it may be obvious to people by this point that my
> AD&D campaign literally rewrites the entire rulebook), I have a "classless"
> character available who does not gain levels.
> You do NOT want to know how much of the AD&D rules had to be rewritten to
> accommodate the classless character. Suffice to say it was second only to
> the amount of rewriting necessary to do away with separate to-hit/damage
> rolls and replace them with a single roll.
I'm just a little confused here.
Why are you still playing it as an AD&D game? You long, long ago passed
the point where the mods to AD&D were far more effort than translating the
characters as best you could into a system that does a lot of what you want
to do "out of the box" and is much easier to modify and keep consistent.
GURPS comes to mind immediately, but Champions or Hero or a variant of
Chaosium BRP would all have been a lot easier to beat into submission than
AD&D. (Granted, I never played much v2--I understand it's gotten much less
ad-hoc in terms of simple mechanics, and there's no longer an E. Gary Gygax
with the Wandering Hobag Table (honest. In the back of v1 DMG there's a
table you roll on to see *what kind* of prostitute you've encountered) and
a different type of die roll for any random situation.)
I want to make clear that I'm not criticizing your decision: if you want to
play a heavily-hacked AD&D it's certainly your business. I'm just trying
to figure out what made the extra effort worth it from your perspective,
when the much lower-effort course would have been to do something else. If
that payoff is, "my players come over to play AD&D: they want to play
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. If the rules are modified, as long as it's
*called* AD&D, they're happy, but they have no interest in moving to
GURPS," that's the answer I'm looking for. Or "AD&D works fine for the
majority of my players, and I'm the only person doing really perverse
things (in the sense of 'things AD&D was not designed to do') that make me
have to bend the system."
This is really a game design issue: what were the decisions that made you
want to stick with AD&D, modifying it greatly to accomodate what you wanted
to do, rather than ditch that set of mechanics and move to a different
system entirely with roughly-converted characters? More generally, at what
point is it worth it to you to scrap an existing codebase/rule set?
Adam
--
adam#princeton,edu
"There's a border to somewhere waiting, and a tank full of time." - J. Steinman
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<li><strong><A NAME="01287" HREF="msg01287.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban#darklock,com></li></ul>
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<UL>
<LI><STRONG><A NAME="01242" HREF="msg01242.html">[MUD-Dev] FW: [MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></STRONG>
<UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Peck, Matthew x96724c1" <x96724#exmail,usma.army.mil></LI></UL></LI>
<LI><STRONG><A NAME="01248" HREF="msg01248.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></STRONG>
<UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Andy Cink <ranthor#earthlink,net></LI></UL></LI>
<LI><STRONG><A NAME="01253" HREF="msg01253.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></STRONG>
<UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban#darklock,com></LI></UL></LI>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><STRONG>[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
<ul compact>
<ul compact>
<ul compact>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01255" HREF="msg01255.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>,
Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Sat 26 Sep 1998, 05:59 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01273" HREF="msg01273.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>,
Travis Casey <a href="mailto:efindel#polaris,net">efindel#polaris,net</a>, Sat 26 Sep 1998, 19:22 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01296" HREF="msg01296.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>,
Vadim Tkachenko <a href="mailto:vt#freehold,crocodile.org">vt#freehold,crocodile.org</a>, Sun 27 Sep 1998, 07:12 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</ul>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01253" HREF="msg01253.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>,
Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Sat 26 Sep 1998, 04:58 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01268" HREF="msg01268.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>,
Adam J. Thornton <a href="mailto:adam#phoenix,Princeton.EDU">adam#phoenix,Princeton.EDU</a>, Sat 26 Sep 1998, 17:13 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01287" HREF="msg01287.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>,
Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Sat 26 Sep 1998, 23:04 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01297" HREF="msg01297.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>,
Vadim Tkachenko <a href="mailto:vt#freehold,crocodile.org">vt#freehold,crocodile.org</a>, Sun 27 Sep 1998, 07:36 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01299" HREF="msg01299.html">[MUD-Dev] Re: let's call it a spellcraft</A></strong>,
Caliban Tiresias Darklock <a href="mailto:caliban#darklock,com">caliban#darklock,com</a>, Sun 27 Sep 1998, 07:55 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</ul>
</ul>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01238" HREF="msg01238.html">[MUD-Dev] FPL: Another embeddable bytecoded scripting language</A></strong>,
J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#under,engr.sgi.com">claw#under,engr.sgi.com</a>, Fri 25 Sep 1998, 23:28 GMT
</LI>
</UL></BLOCKQUOTE>
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