This article perfectly explains a tension I have experienced while trying to learn how to run old school TTRPG games with atomistic combat. Thank you for sharing your design insight.
The BroSR has convinced me to read 1e front to back and learn it, and I have recently finished the PHB. However, the example you cite in this article has caused me some confusion, not about the point you are illustrating in this article, but rather about surprise and initiative.
Why didn't Gary's magic user get to cast sleep (1 time segment) during the surprise the party in the example won? This is the matter of the first half of the first paragraph of the Example of Combat on page 105 of the PHB to be clear. I have not been able to Google an answer to this question and pray it is not too impertinent, being somewhat off-topic. The arguments online about initiative and time segments in 1e are daunting.
It is curious. There are a few possibilities I can think of, but no definitive answer:
a) He misremembered sleep as being a 1-round cast.
b) He attributes some (unquantified) time required to spooling up a cast. Note how he says "begin casting a sleep spell", an odd choice of words for a spell which has the smallest possible time duration attached to it!
c) Perhaps there is something special about surprise segments which I don't understand.
If it was me running that game, I would have certainly assumed (and ruled) that the sleep spell was successfully cast during the surprise segment.
I can't thank you profusely enough for your answer. As a 1e neophyte, I lack the knowledge to trust my own judgment when the rules are dense and I find myself confused. But I trust your analysis quite a lot, and will be happy to rest with the tension in good company.
To the point of your article, I have seen Bros familiar with ACKS observing a difference in the initiative system that I think is best summarized in your comparison of 1MR and the atomic method. I didn't quite understand what they were getting at then but this makes sense of it for me.
The conflict between the elegant methods contained in Gary's gaming wisdom and the clarion depths of Alexander's opus leaves me desiring a synthesis. Then I wonder, does the ACKS approach to Campaigns suffer unnecessarily in the same way that its approach to combat does? I have not read the DMG yet, except for small pieces based on particular curiosities. Maybe it does everything ACKS does, just at the correctly gameable scale?
This blog has further invigorated my interest in 1e and I find myself hungry to learn about your game, BMD, as well. I hope your following grows and that you are richly rewarded for the value of your labor. Thanks again, so much.
Thank you for the kind remarks; I'm glad I could help in some way. I think the question of What ACKS Does vs. What AD&D Does is really big; maybe one of the biggest questions that would take an unrivaled effort to wrap one's head around to gain a complete picture. Maybe that's what we're all working on, in one way or another. Regardless, it's good to think along those lines because it primes us for enhanced perception.
You mentioned it already but it's worth repeating: the one minute round approach makes combat run quicker and closer to real-time. 5e style combat takes much longer and encourages a Pause Time mentality.
A world that can be paused at any time is effectively paused all the time. It's something worse than lifeless or even undead - it's crashed and awaiting a reboot...
This article perfectly explains a tension I have experienced while trying to learn how to run old school TTRPG games with atomistic combat. Thank you for sharing your design insight.
The BroSR has convinced me to read 1e front to back and learn it, and I have recently finished the PHB. However, the example you cite in this article has caused me some confusion, not about the point you are illustrating in this article, but rather about surprise and initiative.
Why didn't Gary's magic user get to cast sleep (1 time segment) during the surprise the party in the example won? This is the matter of the first half of the first paragraph of the Example of Combat on page 105 of the PHB to be clear. I have not been able to Google an answer to this question and pray it is not too impertinent, being somewhat off-topic. The arguments online about initiative and time segments in 1e are daunting.
It is curious. There are a few possibilities I can think of, but no definitive answer:
a) He misremembered sleep as being a 1-round cast.
b) He attributes some (unquantified) time required to spooling up a cast. Note how he says "begin casting a sleep spell", an odd choice of words for a spell which has the smallest possible time duration attached to it!
c) Perhaps there is something special about surprise segments which I don't understand.
If it was me running that game, I would have certainly assumed (and ruled) that the sleep spell was successfully cast during the surprise segment.
I can't thank you profusely enough for your answer. As a 1e neophyte, I lack the knowledge to trust my own judgment when the rules are dense and I find myself confused. But I trust your analysis quite a lot, and will be happy to rest with the tension in good company.
To the point of your article, I have seen Bros familiar with ACKS observing a difference in the initiative system that I think is best summarized in your comparison of 1MR and the atomic method. I didn't quite understand what they were getting at then but this makes sense of it for me.
The conflict between the elegant methods contained in Gary's gaming wisdom and the clarion depths of Alexander's opus leaves me desiring a synthesis. Then I wonder, does the ACKS approach to Campaigns suffer unnecessarily in the same way that its approach to combat does? I have not read the DMG yet, except for small pieces based on particular curiosities. Maybe it does everything ACKS does, just at the correctly gameable scale?
This blog has further invigorated my interest in 1e and I find myself hungry to learn about your game, BMD, as well. I hope your following grows and that you are richly rewarded for the value of your labor. Thanks again, so much.
Thank you for the kind remarks; I'm glad I could help in some way. I think the question of What ACKS Does vs. What AD&D Does is really big; maybe one of the biggest questions that would take an unrivaled effort to wrap one's head around to gain a complete picture. Maybe that's what we're all working on, in one way or another. Regardless, it's good to think along those lines because it primes us for enhanced perception.
You mentioned it already but it's worth repeating: the one minute round approach makes combat run quicker and closer to real-time. 5e style combat takes much longer and encourages a Pause Time mentality.
A world that can be paused at any time is effectively paused all the time. It's something worse than lifeless or even undead - it's crashed and awaiting a reboot...