Hi Everyone,
My name is Sean and I just discovered 2e AS&SH recently when introduced to it by a friend who is using it to DM our current campaign. As you might have guessed Derek the Hunter is my first and current character, a Huntsman, obviously.
I started gaming back in '83 with B/X and moved on to 1e AD&D about a year later. We also played a decent amount of Car Wars, Gamma World, Top Secret and James Bond. I'm currently running a 1e AD&D and 4e Gamma World hybrid campaign in addition to playing in the AS&SH group. Like many I took a break from gaming in my 20's, but came back to it when 3e was released. At first I really liked some of the ideas introduced but as we levelled up the game's warts showed themselves to full effect and soured me probably permanently on d20 games. After another hiatus I started playing 1e again about a year and a half ago when my daughter's boyfriend asked me to teach it to them (they were playing 5e at the time).
Anyway, here I am now playing AS&SH and absolutely love it! It keeps all of the good parts of 1e and fixes most of the "quirks", particularly the multi-classing/demi-humans/level limits issues. If I had it at the time I would have absolutely used it in conjunction with Gamma World instead of using 1e. I may yet figure out how to start working it in...
The only constructive criticism I have so far is that I think more could/should have been done with Races and Secondary Skills. As presented the Secondary Skills feel like an afterthought, kind of tacked on just so something was there. Ideally, each race (or perhaps some groupings) should have it's own table to pick from or roll for which I think I'll start working on in my free time. I've also started working on a Fighter/Thief hybrid along the lines of a Treasure Hunter/Indiana Jones-type, upping the fighting aspect over thieves but removing stealth-based skills (so many classes have stealth already) and gaining a chance to identify both the value and special properties of items, including magical. Class name suggestions welcome.
Again, absolutely LOVE the game. I've been introduced to many fantasy games over the years including other retro-clones, but for me none were worth investing any time and money into...until now, of course!
Sean
Last edited by Derek_the_Hunter (9/09/2019 8:16 am)