tim (10/21/82)
Someone has asked what other FRP games have over AD&D. (1) Realistic combat. The idea of "armor class" comes from Chainmail, the medieval miniatures rules that fathered AD&D. In this, the lower a unit's AC, the better its chance of surviving any hit. D&D simply added hit points as a measure of how much damage you can take, substituting this for instant removal. However, armor in real life subtracts from the damage inflicted by a hit; it doesn't make you harder to hit. There is also the one-minute melee round. This is a total absurdity; hand-to-hand combat is *very* fast. It also leaves you with a very unclear picture of character movements and positions during the round. The completely open-ended hit points system cannot be rationalized, despite Gygax's best efforts. If a large part of hit points is parrying and getting out of the way, how come it takes weeks to come back naturally? A more realistic combat system improves identification with the character by allowing clearer visualization of the world, and speeds up play by preventing the arguments that can result from the ambiguities of an unrealistic system: it is easy to extrapolate and resolve questions in a realistic system. (2) Greater personalization. In AD&D, you are primarily determined by your class, level, extraordinary attributes, and magical items. In many other systems, the ideas of class and level are thrown out entirely, in favor of a more realistic system in which your col- lection of skills is uniquely yours, and you can learn any skill you can convince a trainer to teach you. Experience improves you only in the skills you use, unlike AD&D, in which a thief who never has climbed a wall gets better at it by stabbing people in the back. (3) Intuitive magic. The learning-and-forgetting spell system of AD&D runs counter to human intuition concerning magic, which involves spell learning as fairly permanent, and the powering of spells as the draining factor. This is admittedly arguable, but I think if you're honest you'll agree. (The RuneQuest system has both the kind of spell I've described and infrequently-usable spells, available only to Rune Priests, done with the aid of a deity. These latter aren't forgotten, it's just that your god won't help you out with tem again until you spend some time in worship.) (4) De-emphasis of magic items. Magic items in AD&D can tend to over- shadow a character. Despite warnings about not using magic items frequently, the huge number of such in the DMG creates an almost irresistable temptation for most DM's. Once this cycle is entered, it is virtually impossible to escape. (5) Cost. Most systems cost less than the three basic AD&D books, not to mention DDG, FF, and the forthcoming companion volume. Playing aids tend to provide more for the money than the various AD&D modules, record sheets, etc. (In fact, the only AD&D aid I know of worth the bucks is the DM's Screen.) I hope this has helped to shed light on the matter. The list is not meant to be all-inclusive. Tim Maroney (unc!tim)