Just Because AD&D Did Some Stuff Differently Doesn't Make It Better

I wasn't even looking for reasons why something, anything, is better than 5th Edition. I wasn't even looking for anything relating to 5th Edition, period, but this popped up and I was curious. I've never played 1st Edition. The earliest is whatever iteration the "easy to master" black box set falls into, which I think is Basic. Doesn't matter, as most of my childhood was spent on 2nd Edition, followed by 3rd Edition, then 4th Edition, and finally my own D&Dish game that does what I want.

(Or rather, did, and now I've been exploring other ways to modify it.)

But that's not what this is about. No, we're here to see why Aaron (the Pedantic) thinks that AD&D—specifically 1st Edition—can be better than 5th Edition. I know, I know: not exactly a high DC to beat. Now, given what I've seen of AD&D, my assumption would have been simplicity. Less fiddly options to deal with. Less bonuses to figure out when/if they apply. Also more lethality, an emphasis on playing smarter. Or, dying, learning from your experience, rolling up another character, and trying again.

Aaron doesn't go that route. At first I thought this was strange. Those seem like obvious criticisms, but as the video went on it felt less like a comparison, and more like pretentious pandering. Like Aaron is for some reason jumping off the 5th Edition ship in favor of another bandwagon. I'm not saying there definitely is an ulterior motive, some underlying purpose, but it certainly felt that way given that, over the course of his 40-minute ramble, I can't recall him pointing to anything 5th Edition does that AD&D does better.

Instead he just describes things that AD&D does, or at least thinks it does—and in these latter instances I'm inclined to believe he is merely mistaken or exaggerating—and considers that to be some sort of compelling argument.

He starts out with the bold—and false—claim that AD&D has an "incredibly strong relationship between mechanics and implied fiction", that "AD&D is going to tell you explicitly how these things are related", and the first example he eventually gets around to is ostensibly how magic works. Namely that you might read the section on magic and for some reason wonder why you can't cast more quickly while hasted.

His rationalization?

"Well it's because there are certain incantations you have to pull, there's certain ties to the way reality works. There's fiction that it's drawing from that uses as inspiration with the Jack Vance novels."

Well, out of all that I understood Jack Vance, and I suppose I might as well state that people need to actually read The Dying Earth. D&D magic isn't "Vancian", it's pseudo-Vancian at best, and if you bother to read the source material you'll see that, unlike D&D magic it actually makes sense, and it would have been trivially easy to implement it this way from the start.

I should also point out that the haste spell just specifies that magic is not sped up. It doesn't mention pulling incantations or ties to reality; there's no real reason why it cannot be hasted (I certainly don't recall anything in The Dying Earth saying that spells can't be hasted), and Aaron even follows this up by saying:

"This is just how it works..."

Which isn't a good argument. It's not even an argument. It's something a parent tells a kid, because he lacks the intellect or patience—or, perhaps believes the child won't be able to understand, anyway—to sufficiently explain why something must or mustn't be done.

In the context of a game? Pretty fucking pathetic.

"...and if you try and dance around it, you know which a lot of people are like there's really not a good reason why you couldn't cast an extra spell."

Oh, so Aaron even agrees that it could. So then, why can't they? If you don't want them to be able to, there should be a reason. At least some attempt. Something that might make them go, yeah, okay, I guess that makes sense. But there isn't any.

"You get an extra action right, and that's how they say in fifth edition, but with this there is just the understanding that no, no that is never going to happen."

Same thing in 5th Edition, because haste specifically says what this extra action can be used on. This is one instance where it feels deceptive: both editions specify what haste does, but Aaron is pretending that it's 5th Edition's fault that players might be able to make a case with the DM, and get him to change things up.

As if that would just ruin the game. Unravel everything. It's somehow no longer D&D because the DM houseruled something. Even though DMs do this all the time, in every edition, and no one makes this claim.

"It is not going to happen because magic takes a certain amount of time."

Just so everyone knows, the book does not provide any sort of explanation. AD&D doesn't say "you can't do it because magic must take a specific amount of time, period". It just says you can't. Just like 5th Edition, so that same statement would equally apply there as well.

But where is this great marriage between mechanics and implied fiction? The rules just say spellcasting doesn't benefit from haste, and Aaron pretends that this is some deep intermingling between the rules and some sort of presumed in-game flavor. Flavor which isn't conveyed at all.

"You you look at how many segments it takes to cast your spell, that is how long it takes to cast it."

The same could be said of 5th Edition: you look at how many actions it takes to cast your spell, that is how long it takes to cast it.

Now I'm not saying that haste should speed up spellcasting. I don't think there's a downside to doing so, but I also don't think it's necessary, and you could come up with an explanation as to why (you have to speak at a certain speed for the spell to work, so fast-forwarding through the verbal component ruins it). But the book doesn't even do that much, and I'm not going to pretend it really has to do with anything besides game balance.

Remember: this is supposed to be a video where Aaron enlightens us in ways that AD&D can be better than 5th Edition. So why mislead people into thinking the former has all this flavor, this justification for how things work (or don't work) and that it's supported by mechanics, but then ramble about how, what, in 5th Edition some players are trying to make the case that haste should also apply to spells?

Because you could do that in AD&D, too, for all the weird shit that doesn't make any sense. It's not like 5th Edition's haste says, well, it gives you an action, but it's up to the DM to figure out how it applies, so piss and moan about it to them, maybe they'll let you do what you want. No, it tells you outright what the extra action can be used on, just like AD&D tells you precisely what haste affects. 

Personally I would have opened up with an example of how the mechanics and flavor intertwine into something cohesive, and how 5th Edition flops.

For example, take magic. Specifically wizard magic. In 5th Edition magic is said to be "wild and enigmatic", but it's not. It's perfectly safe, and completely predictable. Barring some in-game effect wholly unrelated to the rules for preparing and casting spells, every time you cast a spell it will always do precisely what you expect.

In Dungeons & Delvers magic is...mostly predictable, but dangerous. Each spell draws from a pool of Willpower points, and when that runs out it starts eating into your hit points. It is possible, if you aren't careful, to knock yourself unconscious, or even die from casting an especially powerful spell. Worse, most of the time the amount of points a spell costs is randomized (ie, unpredictable).

You can play it safe, but it's more like thinking, "Well, this spell might eat up 3 points, but it might instead eat up 18. On average I'll need 10.5, but I'm only really safe if I have at least 18."

So, there you go: just one way that my game has mechanics supported by flavor, while 5th Edition fails. There are more, and I'll mention them later, but let's get back to Aaron's bizarre ramblings:

"Fifth edition is designed in such a way as to make it so that you can describe how things work in a lot of different ways..."

Really? Like what? Weapon attacks? Casting spells? Climbing walls, picking locks, jumping over pits, finding and disable traps...you know what? Let's just see what Aaron has to say. I'm sure this time we'll get an example...

"...because what it does is it breaks down everything into some very fluffy fluff as far as the the narrative of how things function, and all that kind of stuff and then it provides you with mechanics that are very legalese that tell you this is how this functions..."

Or not. Huh. Okay. You know, it's funny that he says 5th Edition has mechanics that are "very legalese", implying that it's complex, difficult to understand. I'm just going to put in a page from AD&D here:

And then 5th Edition here:

And let you be the judge.

"...and as long as you can make this work within the syntax of the system I'm providing then, yeah you got you got an argument for why that could be the case."

What are you talking about?! What are we talking about?!

What I think Aaron is trying to say, is that he doesn't like players trying to change something, or get the DM to rule a certain way, even if the player can sufficiently explain why something should or shouldn't work. Which is one of the reasons why a DM might change something. Like how in 2nd Edition a DM I used to game with let wizards wear armor, but every point of AC imposed a universal 5% spell failure chance.

(I should note that this didn't unravel the game, or suddenly make it not D&D.)

But Aaron doesn't explain why this is "bad", and frankly it comes across like someone with control issues. Wizards "can't" wear armor in AD&D. They just can't. So what happens if a magic-user tries to put on armor, anyway? Do they just phase right through it? Do they suffer damage and are forced to let go? Do they just implode because they "violated an archetype"? 

You can't just say "no" without an in-game explanation. Players with any degree of intelligence are going to wonder why not. They are going to want to know why their magic-user "can't" slap on armor after burning through all his spells (or whenever), just for some added protection. And it can't be anything to do with armor disrupting spells, because the fighter/wizard combination is said to "allow excellent armor protection".

This next part is, well, I was going to say confusing, but everything so far has been confusing. Four minutes into the video and still nothing explaining how AD&D merges rules and flavor in any way, or even does anything better than 5th Edition. But here Aaron starts going on about spell components, and it makes me wonder how much he bothered to read:

"In order to cast the spell, not only do you need to meet your your VSM or whatever kinds of components, but your character has to speak them aloud they can't be gagged in any way."

Which is exactly how it works in 5th Edition as well.

"They can't be restrained in any way they have to be able to move all that kind of stuff."

Also exactly how it works in 5th Edition.

"They can't just you know get up and run around, they've got to stop and then do their whole incantation and all that kind of stuff uninterrupted. They are easily interrupted if they are attacked if if that comes to be the case."

I'd wonder if I missed a part of the rules in 5th Edition, where it says you can start casting a spell, stop, go somewhere else, and start it back up again, but then Aaron, who claims to have been playing 5th Edition for years, apparently didn't even know that spell components are also in the game, and work in precisely the same way.

Now, you can be interrupted while casting a spell with a casting time of more than one action, or while concentrating on a spell. I'll grant that this is somewhat different, given that spells go off when its your turn (so long as they have a casting time of 1 action), but it's not like you can get stabbed while casting a spell and just ignore it.

"In fifth edition none of this applies."

What? Yes it does. It's all on pages 202-203 of the Player's Handbook. Are you for fucking real? I could perhaps understand not noticing the longer casting times section on page 202. I almost missed it myself, but nearly half of 203 is devoted to explaining Verbal, Somatic, and Material components.

I don't even play 5th Edition. I think it's a trash game, and I found this within minutes of bothering to look for it. What really clued me in that this shit would definitely be in there somewhere? The fact that, unlike 4th Edition, spells list the VSM components. They even just abbreviate them like before using V, S, and M.

"It's just no you're gonna get your spell out and it's gonna be cool um that because of that and there's some other stuff that kind of feeds into that."

Sure, if the spell only takes an action to cast. Now that's something that honestly bugs me, because you see in other media wizards getting interrupted while trying to cast spells, and you don't really get that in later editions of D&D. Well, you can, by simply having enemies ready actions to attack when a wizard starts casting a spell, but I suppose it's not going to be as routine.

More importantly: how the hell does this blend flavor and rules together? You're just saying how things work, or at least how you imagine they work, without explaining why you think one is better than the other!

"But a lot of this lot of these mechanics and narrative being married to each other as they are in AD&D..."

Like what? Verbal components requiring you to speak? That's in 5th Edition.

"...makes everything feel more substantial to me."

Okay, sure, but 5th Edition does the same thing. Almost five minutes in and I'm still waiting on how AD&D can maybe be better than 5th Edition.

"It lets me know exactly where we stand. When we come to the table to play first edition there is a very very strong chance that I already kind of have an idea of what the DM is thinking as far as what is plausible and all this kind of stuff, because that stuff's kind of grounded."

So does 5th Edition. The only thing that possibly comes to mind is how players can try to bullshit the DM into letting them use a different ability score for a skill. Other than that, what are you even talking about? What "stuff"? Everything you've mentioned is essentially the same: haste does specific things, and spells use the same components. Why is one "grounded" but not the other?

This is really where it started getting pretentious, and came across more like pandering to AD&D fans. He might as well have just said, "Yeah man, AD&D is just like...better you know? It's just, it's just better, man. Like, pffft, 5th Edition you know? Like what even is that? AD&D is totally where it's at. Like the fiction, it just, it blends with the rules."

Even the Dude is wondering what you're trying to say.

I'm not saying 5th Edition is even a good game. I stopped caring back during the playtest phase when it was clear they weren't even going to try. It pushed me to just make my own game that does all the stuff I wished D&D did from the start. If you're going to point out how AD&D is better, then just fucking do that. You liked 5th Edition, now you don't: why the hell not?

I could easily list off all the crap I didn't like about D&D in general. Were I to do a video on that, I'd do that right from the start. List-style, to make it easy. Fast. The only thing you've compared, 5th Edition does in almost the exact same way.

"But with fifth edition it's like well if the rules don't say that you can't then maybe there's an argument we could use."

Example?

And, what, if AD&D doesn't have a rule for something...you just can't do anything relating to it at all? I thought a big thing of older editions was "rulings not rules". What the hell are you supposed to do if you want to do something, and the book doesn't have a rule for that?

Like, a fighter wants to try and sneak: is there a specific rule for that? If not, can I just not? If I can try, what's the rule that you come up with, and how is different from coming up with rules in 5th Edition? And what if a player suggests a rule that is obviously superior? Tell them no, because something about an argument?

"While you could do that with first edition the book just flat out tells you don't do that."

Can do what? Don't do what? Why are you being so vague?

"...another one is the relationship between classes and their inspirational archetypes..."

Aaron's going to start talking about bards, and I want to point out that he doesn't mention any inspirational archetypes for bards. Why pitch this as a selling point if you aren't going to back it up?

"So when you think of a bard and fifth edition you have all kinds of things that can come into mind..."

Not really. You think of a wandering minstril type. Maybe a skald, but that was at the least mentioned as a possibility in 2nd Edition's Player's Handbook. What many varied things do you think of?

"...and typically it's going to be well they're going to be some kind of performer, and they're going to make magic happen with some kind of performance."

I like you how sneak that in there. A performer who makes magic via "some kind of performance". Implying that it's vague and that there's a lot of leeway. Even though 5th Edition mentions "scholar, skald, or scoundrel", that the bard is a "master of song, speech, and the magic they contain", and that their spellcasting focus must be some sort of musical instrument.

Which lines up pretty well with AD&D's bard abilities, and that they must have a stringed instrument. Really the only difference is that they cast druid spells, implying that a god grants them.

And I'm only pointing this all out because you're going to try to claim that some imagined player will want to be an interpretive dancer bard, because the rules don't explicitly say you can't, even though they do say that you need an instrument for a focus and have to speak. Even their inspiration ability requires that a creature hear you.

But, sorry, inspiration archetypes: what were those, again? And how does AD&D cleave to them better?

"Whether that is them playing music or telling a story or poetry or singing or..."

What's your point? If the edition says that's how it works, then that's how it works. Are you implying AD&D is better because it was more vague as to how things worked? That it in fact did not mention inspiration or archetypes?

"...even if if you look at uh the college of swords it could be a way that you perform your sword play or something like that."

Really? Where does it say that? The rules say that you can use a musical instrument as a spellcasting focus, and the College of Valor (which is what I assume you mean) mentions nothing about using weapons as any sort of focus, or replacement for an instrument.

So...how could a player argue this? 

They say that they want to use their swordplay to cast spells via interpretive dancing or some shit, to which a DM just says, no, because bard magic is clearly about songs, poetry, speeches, that sort of thing.

What's the problem? Is it that the player even bothers asking? Do you think players don't question rules, or suggest changes in AD&D? Do you think that all AD&D games rigidly abided by all the rules, exactly as written?

Are you stupid? Ignorant? Just being disingenuous? Lying?

"There is a great amount of leniency as to how these things happen."

Bull fucking shit. This is another reason the video comes across as pandering. There are always going to be players asking questions, pitching suggestions. Sometimes really stupid ones, and DMs that either think it's a good idea, or too cowardly to just say no. The edition has nothing to do with it.

"...and not so much in first edition in first edition a paladin is a paladin."

Wait, why the heck are you talking about paladins all of a sudden? You were going on about inspirational archetypes and bards, made up some shit that, I dunno, players will try to convince the DM to let them use interpretive sword-dance to cast spells somehow (even though all the class flavor mentions words and songs), but then suddenly switched gears to paladins?

I'm starting to get the sense that you aren't going to defend any of your claims. That you're just going to say a bunch of misleading bullshit, pander to the AD&D crowd, and hope that you're accepted into that camp.

"...a paladin is lawful good. They have a very strict things that they have to follow and this makes the the expectation of a player who is playing a paladin a lot higher than it is for a player who's playing a paladin in fifth edition."

On that we can agree: paladins in older editions had more expectations. But...so what?

Really the only thing 5th Edition does differently is let you be of any alignment. It's not that the book says that paladins must be Good, or Lawful Good, but if the player can convince you to weasel out of it then go ahead and let them.

Alignment aside, you can still lose your paladin abilities if you violate whatever oath you chose.

Oh, I guess you're also not arbitrarily limited to what you can own. But that never made sense, anyway. Plus, it's not an act of charity if you do something simply because you are compelled to: paladins should be judged by what they willingly sacrifice.

"...that being said as far as how everything is represented in the core books it's great it's great it puts that stuff into perspective."

Oh yeah, really great stuff that definitely puts stuff into perspective. Here's the page where it talks about elves:

Okay, so going off of this I have no idea what an elf looks like, anything about their culture, where they live. None of that. I just get paragraphs of racial features that imply that they are apparently good at noticing secret doors (and only secret doors, not living creatures), and is I guess good at sneaking up on monsters.

I find it funny that the rules don't just say that you have a 4 in 6 chance, instead writing out "66 2/3% (d6, 1 through 4)". But hey, at least it's not like all that cumbersome 5th Edition legalese, right?

"...but uh the inspiration behind the cleric is a lot more straightforward."

Oh? Do tell.

"...there is no neutral cleric because if you're neutral cleric then you're probably going to be a druid because a druid is a type of cleric there there's just all kinds of things that are built into each other."

Or don't. I love how Aaron says there's just all kinds of things that are built into each other, and then mentions none of them. I also love how he likes that there are no "neutral clerics". Neutral is only for druids (probably), not because it's part of what limited real world druidic lore there is, but just because.

Who cares about in-game flavor reinforcing the mechanics? Things just do things because some designers put it in there on a whim.

"Um the relationship between races in inspirational archetypes."

He just says it and then rambles about how he really wanted to play an orc sorcerer or wizard in 5th Edition:

"...when i started with 5th Edition I was like you know what, I would love to play an orc sorcerer or wizard because it's kind of weird. You have a character race that is often considered to be not very smart and then you have a character class that when paired with it. It's kind of the juxtaposition it subverts your expectations it's kind of witty and fun and refreshing or whatever but here's the thing: I've had to subverted expectations for a long time that's the kind of fiction that I have had thrown at me for ages."

Basically, he did what a lot of people did, tried doing something unusual because he thought it was clever, got bored because everyone else had the same trite idea, and now it's suddenly bad.

Like a hipster pretending to like shitty music, and then hating it when it goes mainstream. But I can't remember a time where it was ever unique; players have been mashing races and classes that don't exactly play well together for decades, under the delusion that they were interesting, or perhaps wanting a challenge.

So, what? AD&D is better because it says dwarves can never, ever be clerics? Why? Because they don't worship gods? What's the reason for this? Or that half-orcs can never be wizards, even with a high intelligence, because...why? It goes against the non-existent archetype of what orcs can and can't do? Did you know half-orcs don't even have an Intelligence penalty?

"Now it's just all the time every time and what I have found is that it feels kind of gimmicky."

Maybe, but so what? How does this make AD&D better? Because it restricts choice? To me that makes it worse, because as a player I'd be wondering why, and all the DM could do is shrug and say, "That's the rules". Which, again, is a pathetic cop out. A good rule would explain it in a way that makes sense, make you not even attempt something or argue about it because you understand from the start that it wouldn't work.

This comes across as something Lord Farquaad would do: no half-orc wizards! Not in my "perfect" game!

At least that would be honest, instead of trying to pretend that it has anything to do with "archetypes" and "inspiration". Just come out and say that you don't like the idea for no particular reason, and because of that no one should be able to do that. They shouldn't even be able to explain why it makes sense.

"Whenever you're really chewing into the meat of this this kind of subversion of these archetypes and things like that what you end up having is something that's kind of shallow kind of superficial."

Why? What sort of archetype is being subverted by a half-orc being a wizard? They didn't have an Intelligence penalty in 1st Edition. And even if they did, so what? Do orcs have any sort of inherent resistance to magic in general? No? It's not even that all half-orcs looked like half-orcs, or that they were all retarded.

So, what's the problem? Is this some sort of mid-life one-true-wayism? You played 5E, don't like it anymore for some reason, decided to rollback to 1st Edition, and now all of a sudden think half-orc wizards are dumb because, what, 1st Edition didn't allow them? And that makes it better even though there's no justification?

"Whereas whenever you really embrace these archetypes and go into them at their fullest then everything feels a lot more natural it and you know you could say well you all of that is hinging upon the fiction that you're presenting in your game world."

You haven't even mentioned any archetypes. You keep using the word, and mentioning some classes and races, but you don't point to any archetypes at all. Or inspiration. 

How would, say, a dwarf cleric be "less natural"? Or an elven bard? Or a halfling assassin? What prevents a halfling from learning how to sneak up on something? The best ways to kill someone? To use poisons? Do they have some sort of inherent mental disorder where they just cannot at all retain those skills?

"...AD&D has very specific world parameters built in."

It has lots of random, nonsense restrictions (as well as utterly absurd rules in some places), but I've yet to hear why that's better.

"Not only does it tell you that uh your orc could your half orc is never going to be a magic user your dwarf is never going to be a magic user, but it says that your half orc is probably going to be not good or lawful. It's going to be probably evil or chaotic uh and maybe neutral at best. Maybe neutral and they're going to lean toward being thieves and fighters and assassins, and maybe you might work a cleric in there. But they're not going to raise you know themselves to a great high standard of cleric."

Yeah your dwarf can't be a magic-user, and that makes AD&D better because...?

Sure, in Norse mythology they were directly responsible for the forging of various magic items, but we don't care about that inspiration. They just can't use magic because Gary declared it to be so, and that somehow makes AD&D better. 

They also can't be clerics, because dwarves just don't worship any gods. Or they can, but their gods will never, ever grant them access to miracles. Oh, wait, they can in 2nd Edition. But AD&D is better than 5th Edition because it says they can't. Inspiration, archetypes, etc.

"Um that's just not going to happen because those kinds of those the kind of support for those kinds of things don't really exist in the world that's not really stated but it's kind of implied."

Kinds of support for what kinds of things?

"...but there's there's a lot of those things that are built in that whenever you leave it behind whenever you come to the table and you say I'm going to play a half orc there there are there are people that are raising their eyebrows because this means something because the archetypes mean something."

Half-orcs are a standard 1st Edition race. No one is raising their eyes when you pick it, because it's a standard option you can pick.

Also, what archetype? What is it, and what does it mean? Because in 1st Edition a half-orc is stronger and tougher than normal, but has a Charisma penalty (which only applies to non-half orcs, even if the half-orc can pass for a human, because that makes sense). Oh, and they get infravision out to 60 feet.

Other than that, and knowing that they are cross-breeds, we get nothing. Nothing about what they look like, their general behavior.

So is that the archetype? Something that might look just like a human, but is stronger, tougher, and can see in the dark? 5th Edition does that, and tacks on a few more things, actually describes it, but despite losing the Charisma penalty it still clearly fits the mold.

I'm guessing it's because half-orcs aren't restricted for no reason from specific classes that the nonexistent half-orc archetype/inspiration was likewise prohibited from. 1st Edition declared it to be so and that's apparently all that matters. Can't have the strong, not-at-all-stupider than the average human guy using wizard magic. Because, you know, archetypes or something.

"...whenever you say that you are going to play a cleric or more importantly a paladin or a ranger we'll say a ranger..."

Oh so now we're on rangers. You think Aaron's going to actually explain this "archetype"?

"...there's a lot that comes with that. You're not going to be you know taking a whole lot of stuff with you..."

Because the game just says you can't. There's no in-game explanation why you must donate everything to someone else, or why it can't be a fellow PC. It's purely for "game balance". It would make sense for a ranger to hoard certain items and supplies, as you never know when it will be needed. 

But, no: you can only have x of y because arbitrary game rules, which is obviously the best way to design your game. Nonsense restrictions and requirements that have no in-game purpose. Like a board game.

"...you're not going to be looting things all the time."

Yeah, you will. You'll be looting things left and right, you just need to give excess away for no in-game reason besides the game requiring you to.

"You are a person who lives in the wilderness, who is part of basically an order..."

A person who might live in the wilderness, and goes on routine dungeon crawling. Doesn't even have to be in the forest. Also, what order?

"...uh and is going to rise in the ranks of that order and eventually be okay having people serve under you, and things like that but you know you you're not gonna amass wealth that's just not who you are."

There's no order. I've looked at the entire ranger class, which isn't very long. It never once mentions an order. You do get random follows, however. As for not amassing wealth: again, it's a completely unexplained, unjustified restriction. It's just for game balance purposes. There is no feasible in-game reason why a ranger can't just maintain a cache of supplies. Even to hold on to them to give away when needed.

"...you are going to have certain ways that you approach things. You are not going to be evil. You're just never going to be evil."

Also an arbitrary restriction. Just telling players that they can't do this or that doesn't make a game better. It also doesn't reinforce archetypes, unless the restrictions are in line with those archetypes. What are all the ranger archetypes where they don't amass wealth? Better yet, what's the in-game reason why they shouldn't?

I could see this if a ranger was granted powers from some god or entity that was opposed to amassing wealth, to just living off the land, period, but nothing about that is even implied with the ranger. 

"Those those kinds, whenever the the things have been violated it falls apart you've destroyed the archetype and you're going to be punished you are going to be punished by just being a normal fighter."

Destroyed what archetype? You haven't even defined one. You haven't pointed one out. This entire thing has been rambling about how arbitrary restrictions are somehow good just because AD&D imposed them.

The game, not anything in the game, but the game itself punishes you for violating rules that make no fucking sense. This is so mind bogglingly, horrendously retarded: your ranger cannot do this or that for no in-game reason, and this is somehow perceived as a good thing.

"There's just all kinds of stuff like this built into it that I think is fascinating."

Oh yeah, really fascinating that, somehow, you commit an evil deed and suddenly forget all of your skills. Forget how to harm specific creatures. I could see loss of druid spells, assuming I guess that your god takes them away, but then: druids have to be neutral. How did you get druid spells by being good?

But when you say "all kind of stuff like this built into it" you really mean "all sorts of random, nonsense restrictions and impositions". How is that fascinating? Don't know. I can tell you why it's fucking absurd, but I wouldn't call it fascinating.

"...and it it just means that you are given a much more narrow avenue in order to explore these things."

Okay, so it's about control. Don't play half-orc wizards, not because it violates some imagined archetype. Not because it doesn't make any sense, but because AD&D didn't allow it. Because Aaron suddenly doesn't like it. Yet another reason why this video just feels like so much pandering.

Feel free to "explore" your half-orc, whatever the fuck that means, but only by playing specific classes. Wizard? You can't play a wizard. Half-orcs can't be wizards. Why? Uh...er, that is...something about...half-orc genetics?

"...and because of that, because you as a player are not just like well I have this blank canvas and I can do just about anything with it, as long as it falls within the certain mechanical parameters..."

Way to describe every role-playing game: you're allowed to make choices based on what the game permits. But somehow being able to make fewer choices is better. A canvas with some parts blotted out or hacked off. Sounds waaay better.

"...instead you whenever you have this very narrow understanding of what these archetypes represent and you're having to work within that..."

I have no idea of what you're talking about, because you haven't mentioned an archetype. You keep saying it, but the only thing even approaching an example is essentially that AD&D pointlessly restricts you in a number of ways, and that makes it better.

"...that means that you are building richness you're building depth..."

How are you building richness or depth by saying, okay, I'll play a dwarf, and that means I arbitrarily can only choose these classes? Why even allow demi-humans and spellcasting classes? Less is more? So throttle everything to human, and then be either a fighter or thief. Boom: we got even more "richness and depth", because we've taken even more away!

"...you know you are not just hurling uh hurling this this this really special character that you you know into this uh this game and just hoping that it sticks..."

Really none of the characters are special. All of the combinations have been done. But who cares if some moronic, attention-starved Twitter pretender thinks they are interesting for posting trash art of yet another genderqueer, blue-skinned tiefling warlock?

Why does this bother you to the point where you think the game is inherently better by simply removing some options and needlessly, arbitrarily restricting others? Don't play with those people. Mock them online. Whatever, just play with the people you like.

Or, are you hoping to find a system that prevents this from happening in the first place? That the system will shield you from people that don't even play? Because I'm guessing, were, say, Critical Role to take up AD&D, the inept narcissists would roll up a similarly cliché ensemble of post-modern circus freaks.

"...and you know everybody just kind of gets sick of the the fact that it's oh my character is so special and unique no it's your character is interesting because of the things that they do and because of how they separate themselves from the others within these parameters."

It sounds like you're pissed off because players that you don't have to play with are like the cenobites, except they're pushing themselves to even more bizarre and retarded levels of absurdity in order to convince people that they are interesting and unique.

I get it, but then I just wouldn't play with them. You could also weed them out by limiting races and classes (as I've done in Ashes After Ragnarok), and even impose racial ability score penalties. Most people aren't going to want to play a dwarf or half-orc bard if they get smacked with a Charisma penalty.

"...once once you violate those archetypes..."

What archetypes?

"...in such a great degree..."

I reaaally just want to know how a half-orc wizard is violating the half-orc archetype that doesn't exist at all, much less to a "great degree".

"...it's you don't leave a whole lot left you just don't there's just not a whole lot left there so that's just it's just it's just cooler it's just cooler guys..."

So, just do it because if you don't it's not cool. It's just not cool because it's not cool. 

Did you get that? Are you convinced yet?

Yeah, me neither.

Anyway, Aaron also doesn't like builds for some reason:

"Builds are definitely a thing in 5th edition. People will you know work with their feats..."

And? Feats are a thing you can choose.

"...they will pick their subclasses..."

How...dare they choose a class feature at the level they are supposed to choose a class feature?

"...they will do all kinds of multi-classes..."

What's the problem? Multiclassing is optional. Just don't allow it if you don't like it. Or tweak it. This is only an issue if you don't like it, but cave to the players' demands. You don't even "have" to allow feats. Sounds like a simple statement at the start would fix a good deal of your problems.

"...they will pick their spells..."

Gasp!

"...they will do all of these things to try and determine how they can get the coolest setup possible to be the best at certain scenarios to beat the game at the rules of the game..."

So...what, you're upset that they are doing what the game allows to maximize efficacy? Is that the issue? In all my 30 years of gaming I've never had an issue with someone relying on builds, except maybe in 3rd Edition in order to get to a prestige class they really wanted. Not to "break" anything, but because they thought it was neat.

Not that we ever really played long enough to see them there, or to the end.

But, what: do AD&D gamers that want to maximize efficacy not pick the best class suited to their stats? Tend to choose a less than ideal race? Not pick what they perceive to be the best, most useful spells? Do they just go with whatever? Randomly roll everything, including what weapon they're using?

"...basically that is one of the things that people really greatly emphasize on, and you know what people can absolutely engage with those things in some ways that are not obstructive and frustrating and all that kind of stuff."

Using my D&Dish game as an example, my wife started out as an elven rogue. After a level or two they found an owlbear cub. She wanted to keep it as a pet, so took a level in ranger (for the Animal Companion talent). She bounced between rogue and ranger, and then went into wizard because she really wanted to be able to see in the dark (Diviner, then Darkvision, then Read Thoughts, Telepathy, etc).0

Her character is not "optimized". She is useful despite not being focused, but not in any way overpowered. Her entire development was organic: every single decision she made was inline with what happened during the campaign and made complete sense.

These options allow more organic growth. It is unreasonable to dismiss them because some imaginary players that you do not have to play with try to abuse them. The solution is to not play with those players. They can always look for a group that doesn't care if they make choices purely for the sake of optimization, whether or not it makes sense "in-game".

"If they are working within the parameters of what is what does this mean for my character like what what you know what does this say about my character what does this say about the world and all those kinds of things but a lot of people they tend to approach these as mere just mechanics in a vacuum that they just want to enact at the table in whatever way they can possibly manage."

Okay, so here it sounds like you don't mind the flexibility and freedom so much, but only if exercised in a way that doesn't, in your mind, disrupt the game. The solution is, again, not to play with those players whose wants and playstyle doesn't align with yours.

I should point out that Aaron only thinks multiclassing is bad unless you do it like in AD&D, where it's limited to demi-humans and you have to pick all the classes you want at the start. Not for any logical reason, mind you, especially given that humans can switch classes. The process is convoluted and doesn't make any sense, but hey, there's a precedent for picking up a brand new class.

"That's not really going to happen so much with AD&D."

Which doesn't make it better. Less complex perhaps, but certainly not better. 

Moving on, Aaron likes that there's a random chance that you just outright won't be able to learn a spell. I think this is pretty stupid, as it implies that, whatever a spell looks like, you just randomly can't learn it, period. There's no ability to recheck later to see if you can, whether or not you gain a new level, increase your Intelligence somehow, or even have someone walk you through the process.

You did all this to learn your starter set of spells, but I guess once you're at 1st-level there's nothing left to learn from anyone. Well, except when you want to level up, but we'll get to that in a bit.

He bothers to give a reason, finally, that random spell chance plus scarcity can potentially avoid a perceived issue of too many magic-users within an arbitrary timeframe having one or more of the same spells, such as fireball. This of course isn't an issue, but if you want to avoid "too many" wizard players taking some of the same iconic spells, this is some way to perhaps circumvent them.

Now, I do like the idea of having to find spells in order to learn more, as opposed to learning new ones on a level up, though that makes perfect sense, too. Might work that into the 2nd Edition of Dungeons & Delvers. I already know how, it's just a matter of making it the norm.

Aaron likes training to level up, even though no one in any fantasy literature I've ever read needed to constantly train on the side in order to improve at all. It doesn't matter how many foes you face, what your XP total is: your fighter will need to undergo more mundane, paid training—totaling thousands of gold pieces—for weeks to actually benefit from any of it.

Because that makes sense. You'll never get better without doing bog-standard training, presumably precisely what you did prior to becoming 1st-level in the class. Learn by doing? Forged in the crucible? Experience is the best teacher? No, go get all that real world experience, then come back and have some other guy, who doesn't even have to be at your level, instruct you on how to do what you were just doing, in a completely safe, predictable environment.

I just want to see an 8th-level fighter get enough XP for ninth level, and then tell the rest of the party that he has to now go have a 1st-level fighter teach him something, to the tune of 12,000 gold pieces per week, for one to four weeks (depends on how well the DM graded your performance). And if you can't afford it? Whelp, you're fucked.

In some cases you can train by yourself, but it for some reason takes twice as long. What are you doing? Don't know, but it still costs you thousands of gold pieces. More actually, because it's twice as long: so instead of paying some guy 12,000 gold pieces (assuming you only need him to teach you how to hit things for a week), it'll now cost you 24,000 gold pieces. 

What makes it even more retarded, is that it's level-based. As if you, instinctively knowing that you're high enough level to where further adventuring won't avail you, go to Mike the Trainer. You tell him you need to smack wooden dummies for a few weeks so you can level up, because you've reached a completely artificial hurdle that no amount of dangerous dungeon delving can overcome.

And he somehow knows your level. One week of smacking dummies? At 1st-level it's gonna run you 1,500 gp, assuming the DM gave you an Excellent rating, but at level 2 it's gonna run you 3,000 gp. There's no indication that the training grows more intense. It doesn't take longer, trainer level doesn't matter, he just keeps upping the price because he somehow knows your level.

But according to Aaron this is better. This makes sense, somehow. Remember all the times Conan had  to spend time training? Giving some schmuck thousands of gold pieces over the course of weeks just so he could improve? Or Aragorn: remember all the chapters from Return of the King, where he had to spend all that gold training under another ranger just so he could level up before the big finale?

Makes perfect sense. Wouldn't do it any other way. I wouldn't have it so that you can train under someone that's higher level than you, at a gp-to-XP ratio. Or be required to train in order to improve a skill that you weren't using frequently during an adventure (or at all). Or train to learn a new class that you didn't put time into during the course of the game.

No, no, have the players regularly dump thousands, even tens of thousands of gold in order to improve, period, regardless of the circumstances.

It should come as no surprise that this was not only made an optional rule in 2nd Edition, but it states that the trainer has to be higher level than the one you are going for, and doesn't specify a cost (though says that 100 gp a week isn't uncommon). There's also a chance that the training doesn't stick: you need to make an Intelligence or Wisdom check, but the checks get easier each time you fail.

There's more—and you can watch the video if you want to sit through around 40 minutes of pretentious pandering, delivered via stream of consciousness—but it's really just Aaron telling you kinda sorta how things might have worked in AD&D, just not actually why it makes things better. He doesn't even explain how the AD&D way was even good, or made sense. It's just, it worked this way, and that's all you need to know.

And that's part of what makes this video so spectacularly disappointing. I wanted to know what made it better, and why. But nothing he says makes me go, yeah, AD&D did this or that better than 5th Edition, and as I keep saying I don't even like 5th Edition. A lot of AD&D's rules and restrictions come across as pointlessly random, purely implemented for game balance, or to narrowly define things that, frankly don't need to be or even benefit from being so narrowly defined.

Like clerics being unable to use edged weapons because of blood, as if blunt weapons don't also shed blood, or only thieves and characters with specific magic items being able to even attempt to sneak.

And a lot of the stuff that doesn't bug me in how it functions comes across as poorly written, excessively wordy, and needlessly convoluted. Frankly I think they're both bad, just for different reasons. If I had to pick one? Eeeh...I don't know, but probably 5th Edition since I feel like I'd make less mistakes. Things are more intuitive, clearly laid out. I'd just houserule lots of stuff to make it actually challenging, and limit races and classes to avoid the whole freak show aspect.

Unlike Aaron, I can go into all kinds of specifics as to why Dungeons & Delvers is better than 5th Edition (or any other edition, really):

• Hit points are split into Wound Points (ie, meat points) and Vitality Points (ie, minor injury/exhaustion/combat intuition, etc), making it easier to deal with short-rest healing, healing magic (only affects WP), and certain attacks.
• Armor grants a bit of Damage Resistance, as well as an AC modifier. So heavy armors are more protective in more ways than one.
• Spellcasting classes use mechanics that actually make sense based on the supporting flavor, as opposed to all largely relying on pseudo-Vancian mechanics.
• Magical healing isn't assumed or necessary. Makes it easier to handle low-to-no magic, and also avoid watering down spells.
• Crafting items has a point, and remains useful at all levels due to how item quality can scale up.
• You get a scaling bonus when ganging up on the same target in combat, so there's a bit of strategy, but even a wizard with a spear can reliably help out (even if you miss, you still add a +1 to hit to the ball).
• Many monsters have been tweaked, making them more interesting or unique. For example, owlbears have wings. They can't fly, but can glide a fair distance, enabling them to hop out of trees and divebomb prey.
• Wizards don't use fire-and-forget staffs and wands. Instead those are used to boost their magic, and can be customized in a bunch of ways.
• The monk is actually useful.
• Poisons and venom are way more interesting and dangerous. It's not just x damage, or -y to a stat for a short period of time. Same for diseases, which are far more commonplace to the point where spells and items that prevent and cure disease are actually useful.
• Fire damage can actually, you know, light you on fire, resulting in round-by-round damage from burning.
• Acid damage tends to inflict dwindling damage over time, and damages and destroys armor. Nasty stuff.

I could go on, but there you go: actual reasons. It's not just "my game is different", or prattling on about imagined archetypes. This is what I was expecting, as opposed to just...describing restrictions. Is AD&D better than 5th? Perhaps? Probably? Maybe someone will record a video where they actually point out how and why.