Ok I admit it, I'm having Old School envy

[Black Jack Rackham]

So it turns out for the past couple of years, I've planned various halloween special events and, for some reason, they never seem to work out (nobody's interested in the game, didn't see the message, etc.) so we've ended up doing some old 1st Edition AD&D modules (Tomb of Horrors one year, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan another, etc.) Now each time, I asked my players how many times they'd played previously and it turned out they'd NEVER played any of the classics. Phew blew my mind.

So recently we've been talking about what to do when we get to a good stopping point for Deadlands and my Golden-Age Champions games. And I asked if anyone had ever done any adventuring in the Forgotten Realms. Turns out AGAIN no one had ever done it. So recently I grabbed up my old 2nd Ed books (cause most of FR is 2nd Ed stuff) and started reading. Oh boy am I excited for this.

Stuff I'd forgotten...
Bards (as a unique class separate from doing the Fighter, Thief, Druid route) started here.
Assassins apparently went away as a class after 1st Ed.
Half-Orcs weren't a player class in 2nd Ed. (but Dark Elves were!)
They actually compared the Cleric class to the Knights Templar (despite not being able to use a sword unless you follow 'a' god of war)

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, you must have asked this past Sunday, when I wasn't there, because I have played it a little, just been a very long long time since. Long enough to forget, lol.

[salamanca]

Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh Module U1...just sayin'...

[Black Jack Rackham]

Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh Module U1...just sayin'...

Started David, a friend of his, and Kelly on this. Classic!

[salamanca]

Last time I ran it, I had a guy insist on buying barrels of salt because it was haunted and salt effects ghosts (mind this was years before supernatural) he salted the entire freaking house.

[Lord_Nabu]

2nd Ed. is still "my" D&D 3E came after I didn't get to game that much.

I think I feel about ThAC0 the same way I feel about DOS. Except I think I would be able to live with ThAC0 in a game, actually going back to the old DOS games makes me admit, that I like graphics (though Masters of Magic is STILL an almost perfect game, if someone recoded it with some better looking icons I would be in heavenm, and yes, fallen Enchantress is quite good, but still doesn't have the CRAZY replay value MoM had, but I digress).

We never played a lot of ready-made scenarios, mostly because in Denmark RPGs were and are quite costly, especially for a bunch of kids. Besides, I prefer making my own fantasy worlds, inventing new magic systems is what I do when I can't fall asleep.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Last time I ran it, I had a guy insist on buying barrels of salt because it was haunted and salt effects ghosts (mind this was years before supernatural) he salted the entire freaking house.

Well... It worked, after he was finished there were no ghosts in the house...

[Black Jack Rackham]

Ok, went to an Old School forum and got a couple of suggestions for beginning adventures for the players (Lords of Darkness, Book of Lairs 1&2, The Accursed Tower, and my particular favorite, Tomb of Horrors )Now to get to work reading.

[salamanca]

Were you running around over at dragonsfoot?. It's a neat place. Also note if you really want to get all old school, wizards is planning a reprint of the original white box stuff for about 150. Seems a little pricey for a reprint of some very dated rules. (this is the before "advanced" edition). And for the record, B3 sort of holds a special spot with me.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Actually the old school forum as on FB but I checked out Dragonsfoot (I'm already lurking on the Piazza http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/index.php), very cool site with lots of info.

All the reprint stuff is 1st ed or before, and I'm trying to stick with 2nd (which apparently is the one I know the best*).

Almost finished re-reading the 2nd Ed PHB. Lots of optional stuff which would become integral to play in 3rd Ed. Kind of neat to see.

*kind of a surprise given that I THOUGHT I'd played 1st Ed far longer than any of the other editions (apparently I played 1st and 2nd editions for about 10 years each).

[Black Jack Rackham]

Welp, I see why I moved on from 2nd Ed. I just can't stop thinking of ways to fiddle with the rules to make them fit more logically in my mind. So if I'm really gonna do this I think I just need to stick with RAW.

Still got a ton of reading to do.