default header

Roleplaying

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1E)

Moderator: JC Denton

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1E)

Unread postby icycalm » 21 Jun 2021 00:06

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42y9m?Old-People#11

Utterly hilarious post about a Pathfinder GM going back and finding out what 1E adventures looked like. It is exactly how he describes them. They were basically tougher and more raw, and as a result had some funny quirks about them. Some day once I have more experience I will provide my own analysis. I mostly prefer the newer, PF style, but the old style had some advantages too.

This is all your fault Lord Fyre. I found an old AD&D module and have started trying to convert it--"Against the Cult of the Reptile God."

General encounters aren't too hard so far--I err more on the side of choosing something for an appropriate CR than a "literal translation" so to speak. So this adventure calls for a spirit naga which is CR 9. But I decided the big bad should probably be no more than CR 6 or 7 at most, so I picked a lunar naga instead. Narratively it doesn't make much difference, and I can even write the lunar naga's peculiarities into the story.

I am finding however that I have to account for more save-or-die/suck sort of scenarios that have been excised from later editions and especially Pathfinder--for example, in this one, the naga apparently has a permanent charm ability. I haven't looked up the old monster manual entry to be sure, but I am pretty sure this is a standard monster trait in AD&D. Because it's totally fine to lose your whole team and end the campaign due to a few bad saving throws. Nagas' charm abilities are not permanent in Pathfinder (and probably not in 3.x either). I'm not going to change the naga's stats to make it permanent (especially since I don't like that kind of gameplay, personally), but I decided that the naga in this story had to put the charmed cultists in the adventure through a ritual to make them permanently charmed. This explains why the cultists remain loyal after a long period of time in this version of the story. (And the PCs could be subject to the ritual if they really mess things up.)

An interesting challenge is dealing with what is and isn't codified into the game mechanics. True to the spirit of AD&D there are very few suggested mechanics for, say, how the PCs gather information from local townsfolk, leaving it entirely up to the GM (and one GM might rely entirely on roleplay for how this works, while another might purely call for Charisma checks and not bear in mind roleplaying at all; a third might use a little bit of both). Whereas, if you're trying to fully convert something into the style of Pathfinder, you probably should provide various DCs for Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, and Sense Motive checks (of course, different GMs will still account for roleplaying to varying degrees, with some not asking for die rolls at all and others clinging to them religiously). While of course GMs can still come up with mechanics on the fly for something not explicitly included into the module, especially if the PCs really try something different or go off the rails, there is an expectation for the challenges to reflect what mechanics are in a Pathfinder game, and a lot of the "conversion" I'm doing is actually coming up with appropriate skill check DCs right and left. Of course one doesn't HAVE to do this, it depends on what you're doing this for. But there is SO MUCH you can mechanize when converting to "Math"finder. I decided to create a settlement statblock for the town the story takes place in, for example. That takes a lot more work than just describing the town!

At the same time, the "gameyness" of AD&D shows up in different ways. There's very few die rolls called for outside of combat, but there's a few places that mention people being able to detect alignment, not as a magical ability, but just, you know, a thing you do when you recognize someone like or unlike yourself. "Hey, I see you're the same alignment as me!" Another section explicitly points out that a certain NPC will refuse to reveal "his class and level"; the way it is written, it seems to actually assume someone might walk up to someone in this world and say "Hi, I'm Bob and I'm a 2nd level Ranger!" Those things I'm just writing out of the module entirely, or replacing them with other narrative text or game mechanics, e.g., rather than the NPC somehow just sensing alignment, they have a decent Sense Motive check.

It's fascinating to me what details are included in the AD&D module versus what you might find in a Pathfinder module. A lot of NPC characteristics and behavior are described where this would probably be left up to the GM in Pathfinder, with only truly key NPCs described and or provided some stats. The AD&D module also specifically accounts far more for the presence of murderhobos among the PCs, providing stats for very ordinary townsfolk AND where they happen to hide their life savings in their houses, you know just in case the PCs decide to search a farmhouse for where the owners keep all their money.

Except women. Women don't get stats. Except for three of them, and one of them is evil. Seriously, this is a module where the appearance and residents of almost every single house in town are described--if they're a dude. Almost every single house is identified with its owner, a named man with stats, with his unnamed statless wife. Sons are also named and statted if they are grown. Daughters are not. Children are not named or statted. The exception is the old lady widow who lives by herself who is allowed to have a name, one of the villains whose husband is gone, and a woman who gets named and stats because she is a retired adventurer (but she is a lower level than her husband, who, it makes clear, is the owner of the house she lives in). There's also one nameless but "overbearing" wife which the module feels the need to point out has a Strength of 16. No other stats, class or level, just FYI Str 16.

Oh and there's two male elves who live together, and everyone's suspicious of them. You know those elves.

Because I am a ridiculous and evil SJW, and because it is no longer 1917, let alone no longer 1982, I will provide names and statistics, where appropriate, for female characters. Some of them might get to be owners of houses. (Mind you, because I know tone gets lost on the Internet, I mainly find this hilarious, if also sad. I am not deeply offended--there are other things in the world to be offended about than an out of print adventure module from 1982.)

This said, 90% of the NPCs where the old module provides AC and HP, I'm just going to say at the beginning, "for ordinary citizens, use stats for the Farmer in the Game Mastery Guide."

Anyway. I think for treasure I'd almost completely re-generate it from scratch to bear in mind level-appropriate gear. And not bother with the detail that the dairy farmer the PCs may not even talk to hides 500 electrum pieces hidden in a milk canister in the barn.

Electrum pieces! I can't even remember the conversion rate for those anymore.

I will also just remove the description that says, "Characters will need to travel to the city west of here to be able to train to gain a level."

Speaking of class and level... the AD&D module is for "characters level 1-3." In my Pathfinder brain, I interpreted this as "you will begin at level 1 and will be level 3 by the time you finish the story." And then I realized that's not actually what they meant. They meant the PCs could be anywhere between levels 1-3 and different PCs might be different levels, because back when women had no names, PCs gained more XP individually AND leveled up at different rates. Who KNOWs what level they might be by the end of the module? They may indeed not level at all if the GM didn't let them travel away to train. Very few XP awards are also described -- I think the presumption is that you only gain XP by killing things? It's been so long since I played AD&D I don't remember (plus I do remember getting story and RP awards). So when converting you do need to think about what the party's starting APL should be and where they should end up, and maybe add enough XP awards if you feel it necessary to be sure that is likely to happen.

Anyway, that's my blathering. What, I needed a distraction from reality of late.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Return to Roleplaying