‘There was also another rule whereby your HP could go down to -10 before you actually died, or something. Nobody used it.’

Does that make more sense? [POST ABOVE EDITED TO ACCORD WITH POSTER'S INTENTIONS]

I do think the alignment ‘language’ is rather silly and I don’t know anyone who pays attention to it.

“There was also another rule whereby your HP could go down to -10 before you actually died, or something. Nobody used it.”

Really? My role-play group use it. When you hit 0 hit points you are concious but too injured to move. At -1 you fall unconscious and will loose hp at 1 point per round unless stablised either by healing magic or good, old fashioned bandaging and tending. The former restores hp (it’s magic, it’s basically ‘miraculous restoring of health’) whereas the latter merely stops loss of hp. Healing proficiency can restore hp at 1 point per hour of constant tending I believe, as the healer attempts to repair injuries by non-magical means (like a medievil doctor).

I think going into the minus’ works, as at this point characters can be assumed to have received grevious injury preventing them from functioning anymore. Going straight from 1 hp – walking around merrily fighting monsters – to 0 hp – dead – is very silly! We generally consider the minus hp period as a chance for companions to administer CPR or take precautions against their friend bleeding to death.

Ahem. Sorry, am I rule-ranting.

As for the ‘Greed is Good’ principle I have to say it’s part of the game I don’t like. I’ve been through some hefty adventures and received pitiful xp purely because the party was motivated by helping others rather than wealth. It felt a lot like punishment for a good deed (and since we were of good alignments entirely inappropriate).

Encumberance works alright, as long as you take it with a pinch of salt. After all, the books don’t list how much everything weighs so most of it is guess-work anyway. But it makes sense that weaker people simple can’t carry as much and even strong people have limits. You also have to consider where you would put everything. For example a fighter is carrying five swords. How? He could comfortably have two at his waist and on his back, but a fifth can’t go anywhere that isn’t encumbering.

As for carting gold around the place well it’s not something you want to be doing ideally. Couldn’t you leave it somewhere and go back to collect it? If something is too heavy for your character give it to a stronger one to carry on your behalf. I have a thief and she generally isn’t all that interested in gold, she tends to pick up small items of high value. They have the advantage of being light and easy to conceal. Why carry 10,000 gold when you can carry a handful of gems? Besides, there are ways to get around encumberance such as bags of holding, portable holes and their ilk.

Hmm yes the AC modifier table does get forgotten a fair bit, but I wouldn’t say ‘ignored.’ More that since the majority of combat is with melee weapons it’s generally performed in an open enviroment. There have been some fun moments where a character of mine has needed to fire a range weapon at a monster behind cover and the ‘cover’ has been her fellow party members!

Perhaps playing with one group means you only know one way the game is played. Play with another group and you will get a different experience.

I’ve read though a few of your post and I’m not sure of your current age but if you think you are too old to return to the game you should know that there are players out the in their forties and fifties. If it’s a pastime you enjoy there’s no reason not to return to it, apart from perhaps the time commitment. Is it really something you are ashamed of?