[thurgon]

Originally Posted by JRM

As for the "disconnect from the real world" I think the worst case is the rule that if a character jumps or swings more than their movement allowance they stop and hang in midair until their initiative on the following round. What on earth were they thinking?

This is a little unfair: the designers make it clear that there is a difference between the resolution system, which is stop-gap, and the behaviour it is meant to be modelling, which is continuous. Though the implementation is a bit strange in places, I'll agree.

Originally Posted by JRM

My main gripe is the encounter section of the DMG which basically says the players should have X encounters to go up each level with monster of Y lethality who possess Z amount of treasure, and its insistence on how much treasure a character of a given level should possess. It reads more like instruction than advice, and in my humble opinion that sort of thing should be left entirely to the DM.

Actually, whether or not one enjoys D&D 3E - and I'm personally not a big fan - there is no doubt that one of its strengths is to set out explicitly how its character reward system - XP and GP - was intended by the designers to integrate with the obvious meta-game priority of bashing monsters with characters of ever-increasing (personal and gear-related) power.

I'm looking forward to Lev's review of the 1st Ed DMG, and one of the many weaknesses that he might point out is that it has no coherence in it's approach to rewards. It simultaneously tells us that, when treasure is spoken of we mean TREASURE, and yet cautions GMs to be stingy in XP and GP awards. The random treasure tables allows for Rings of 8 wishes, and yet caution GMs to be stingy with +1 swords. There is simply no coherent presentation of a workable system for character rewards. It did "leave things entirely to the DM". And a system with no rules, requiring its players just to make it up, does merit a rating of 1.

Coming at it from a slightly different perspective, there seems to me to be something obviously dysfunctional about a system whose author complains about rules-lawyering and monty-hauling in the rule book, and yet which has spawned more such behaviour among its players then probably any other RPG system.

Of course, not all parts of AD&D are as underdeveloped as its reward system - but given how important this is to the game, some idea might have been given of how it was meant to work.

Originally Posted by Lev Lafayette

The usual argument is that the AD&D PH achieves its stated objectives (which is a bit tricky as the objectives aren't stated per se) which is trivially true. Yes, the AD&D PH creates characters, of a very limited sort. But The World of Synnibar achieves its objectives too; so does Imagine (yes, one day I'll review that too). Hell, almost every product on the market achieves what it was supposed to (with the possible exception of B1: In Search of the Unknown); it is truly substantial is if it achieved it well.

I agree. The mere fact that a game is chock-full of rules doesn't make the rules any good. The fact that design objectives were achieved doesn't per se make the game any good - the objectives may have been bad.

Btw, on the racial level limits, Lev is right. They are poor for balance - and so here is a case where it seems the design goals were not actually achieved. If (as many defenders of AD&D have argued) games didn't normally reach high levels, then the limits don't work as balance. In a 1st level one-shot, for example, demi-humans rule. But at high levels they just suck. Unbalance at both ends doesn't equal balance.

Finally, Lev, thanks for the good series of reviews. As a long-time Rolemaster player, who is very aware of the difficulties with that system, I'm looking forward to your reviews of it. (And unlike some posters, I am very aware of the difference between enjoying play with a system, and the quality of that system itself.)