If Ben passes on Druid, I'm thinking that.

Or we could all be druids.

Druid is a strange class, given the scope/write-ups of other 1e classes. I read an forum post, penned by Gary Gygax over on the Dragonsfoot forums, where he talked about how the Druid class  came in the mail as an unsolicited player submission and he liked it so much he included it in 1e PHB, pretty much unchanged. It's an odd class because its design is so unlike the other AD&D classes, with exception of maybe the Thief. It has a lot of situational skills, with their own unique subsystems, and is one of the better-defined classes.

It sort of sticks out from all the other classes, at least in my mind, just based on its write-up and all the situational perks it gains.

The Complete Druid's Handbook from 2nd edition showed druids could be surprisingly diverse.

I have to admit as someone who really likes big fantasy cities, wilderness is a bit of a new field for me - even my barbarian (Fighter) warrioress Vala in the other AD&D game is someone who left the wilderness for civilisation.

Want to make sure everyone is clear--the next AD&D game I run is not going to be all sitting around a campfire in the woods, roastin' weenies and makin' S'mores. There are plenty if civilized areas in Elsir Vale, so I wouldn't build a character based solely on the "wilderness/overland" pitch I described earlier.

What that means to me is this game won't be an urban or dungeoncrawl. It will be a classic fantasy game with a good mix of all environments.

All classes will have their utility so please don't take my comments to mean everyone should play a ranger or druid.

The only druid I ever played, mostly due to my youthful want to be good, so never played neutral or evil characters,  the whole absolute neutral thing was beyond me, so the first and only dnd tournament I went to, I was a assigned a druid.  It was a strange one day adventure (based on a module I had already seen) where characters interact with a spaceship and alien robots, creatures, etc.   I was over my head in the whole competing against each others to "win" the tournament, but at one point, characters were allowed to box against an alien robot boxer and gamble on the outcome.  I quietly bet time and again on the robot (I figured being neutral, it seemed the better odds).  I amassed a bunch of money an xp's doing that one and only thing and ended placing 3rd in the tourney and getting some prizes.  Strange day.

Sounds like Barrier Peaks. Voted fifth best module of all time!

And yes, True Neutral in 1st ed. is a fascinating but difficult alignment for most people. In essence, if the world got dominate by good, the Druids were fight for evil, to restore the balance. I loved it!

Yeah, Ben, I get it more as I age, but my young idealist self, could not fathom such a thing :-).  Still, I play to imagine the better parts of myself...

In reply to Galadel (msg # 178):

Trust me, plenty of older people can't understand it either, it's pretty odd.

I sometimes wonder if there are any fictional characters that fall into that category.

Could you imagine Gandalf spending decades aiding Sauron's right, because the world had gotten to soft, then he turns around and guides the Fellowship to knock him back down?

Or what about Snape, Slyerin, but turning on Voldemort when he got too powerful?

This is premature, but I’m open to playing any 1st edition class other than thief or a monk (due to the low level incompetence). I’ll probably steer clear of a fighter as I’ve done that quite a bit, unless a character comes to mind that intrigues me. I’m not sure how much I’d enjoy a wizard, with 1 spell per day, but I might give that a shot, since I haven’t really done that before.

The game as described sounds like a good match, so I’m getting excited.

If someone else is hungering for Druid, I would switch to Monk, been a long time.

Cool. :)

As I've said I'm leaning towards a Thief but I'm not glued to that. Guess I'll see how it goes!

What will happen is that we will all politely step away from choosing druid to allow someone else to do it, and in the end all that politeness will result in nobody being a druid. :)

Hah! :D

It's entirely possible no one will qualify for Druid - you need a 12 Wisdom and a 15 Charisma!

(I'm still amazed I rolled the attributes necessary to make an Illusionist the first time around!)

Years ago I wanted to play a Druid but didn’t get the scores to qualify. I ended up with an hardened, hide-wearing fighter who was expelled from her Circle because she didn’t measure up. That was a great character!

Re: Unearthed Arcana

I pulled this book off the shelf last night just to take a trip down memory lane and to see what (if anything) I might want to include/allow in a game, today.

As I flipped through the book, it was eye opening to see this material 25 years or so after it first appeared. Frankly, I don't think it has aged very well. Probably the most useful items in the book are the additional spells and the expanded demi-human deities.

At a Glance

Expanded Character Race/Class Level Limitiations: Take it or leave it. In 37 years of gaming, I have only seen a handful of occasions where a demi-human character bumped up against the maximum class level.

Expanded Races: Mostly a Greyhawk focus here, but the new races are neat.

New Classes: I only saw Cavaliers and Barbarian in play a few times. Never seen a Thief-Acrobat. I don't have any strong opinions on these classes.

Weapon Specialization: Loved this as a young player, less enamoured by it now.

New Spells: A welcome addition

Alternate Character Generation Rules: Eh..whatever. 4d6, drop lowest works fine.

Comeliness: No

Social Class and Rank: Neat idea, but I have never run a campaign where this was a focus area.

New Treasure: A welcome addition

Demi-Human Deities: Very nice

Pole-Arms: Purely space filler to flush out page count to make a complete signature

Having skimmed through it again, can say I don't think we're missing much by not using UA. Probably will have the spells be accessible, if a caster wants to use them. Other than that, not looking to add anything from UA into the next game.

All I think I ever really use from UA is the extra spells. Actively dislike some of the new classes they liked. Barbarians and Cavaliers? Ick.

Lacking UA I'm mostly familiar with the 5e version of Barbarians, though I gather they are much simplified and balanced by comparison.

Doing some backend stuff to set this game up, but while looking through Unearthed Arcana, that then led me to look at the 2e Players Handbook.

I am looking to bring the 2e bard into 1e and am working up a conversion, as another possible character option.

Oh yay! :) The 2e Bard is a lot more manageable than the crazy old school Bard.

So if its just the group here starting out, that's five.  Rolls may determine what we can actually play as some are tougher to get.  But, let's post our first choices and see if works out to a rounded party (ie, not one thief and four druids :-).

You may have another player (possibly two) joining the cast. I have one player who has expressed interest. Good player. Good track record of regular posting, etc. There is a second player who I have not asked yet, but will likely do so, because the player is also excellent.

Good to know, though I hope we keep it manageable. I find big groups can really slow down a game.

Hmm. I think I'd honestly like to consider a Bard if I make the rolls, and assuming the conversion is pretty similar to the 2e version.

Otherwise I'm thinking either a Thief/Magic-User or a 'pure' Thief.

Itching to start rolling, can we roll up our stats here, or do you want us to wait till (if) you open up the new game?