History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / TabletopGames

*** All classes now have a mandatory "subclass" choice, typically made around 2nd or 3rd level, which provides roughly half of the class's features.

** There was a greater emphasis on monsters without effects in the early years of the games, with Effect Monsters often being much less of a staple of decks. What was more, the entire initial lineup of Effect Monsters in the OCG consisted of Flip Effects, which influenced a couple early videogames.

** When Orks defeated an alien planet, they usually just shook it down for tribute and vassalized it, afterwards visiting it semi-regularly when the tribe wanted more weapons, food, or treasure. When an Ork force occupied a world, it tended to have a surprisingly light touch since the Orks didn't care very much about what the locals did and mostly focused on their own internal drama and on whatever external foe required them to set up the garrison. In modern lore, overrun worlds are usually just razed to the ground and either abandoned or turned into full Ork worlds.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' started as a spinoff of Dungeons & Dragon's 3.5 Edition, and while the rules were very similar, the tone of the game was very much DarkerAndEdgier. Due in part to the writers taking more inspiration from [[TwoFistedTales pulp fantasy stories]] than their predecessors, in the game's default campaign setting of Golarion, everything common to 3.5 Edition was dialed up to an extreme. Slavery was common and fighting against it was seen as ridiculously naïve, [[AlwaysChaoticEvil entire races]] were depicted as being [[CompleteMonster Complete Monsters]] down to the individual, and the writers didn't shy away from portraying the origins of half-orcs as being [[ChildByRape children by rape]]. In the very first Adventure Path, some of the first villains are ''hillbilly rapist necrophile cannibal incestuous ogres'', just to illustrate the level of shock value. Nowadays, the game has a [[LighterAndSofter much broader appeal]], and modern writers readily admit that the early lore was handled poorly, either to a [[{{Narm}} embarrassing]] or [[CreatorBacklash offensive]] degree (and sometimes both).

*** Garfield has said that while they knew some cards like Ancestral Recall were overpowered, but by making them high rarity, they assumed the cards wouldn't be a problem, which still indicates that they didn't realize just how powerful some of those cards were. Still, if players only bought a starter deck and a few booster packs the cards would be much less of an issue, but players [[CrackIsCheaper spent far more on Magic than they anticipated]], and the competitive environment that quickly sprung up was totally unprecedented. In a similar vein, the rule limiting a deck to 4 copies of a given card didn't exist simply because no one anticipated that people would have more than a few copies of a given card anyways. It became an obvious problem very quickly, with decks doing things like running 40 copies of Lightning Bolt to burn the opponent to the ground, or an early tournament where the deciding match lasted only a turn and pitted two players with 20 copies of Channel, 20 copies of Fireball, and 20 copies of Black Lotus against each other, and the rule limiting a deck to 4 copies of each card was created.

** The "Block system" of one large set followed by two related sets, as we know it today, didn't actually begin until ''Mirage''. ''Homelands'' was originally shoehorned into an ''Ice Age'' "block", but then later made ''Coldsnap'' to properly complete the ''Ice Age'' "block".

* The rules of chess went through several changes until they reached the ones we're familiar with today. In the old Indian and Arabic versions of the game, the bishops were elephants and could only make short moves (although they were able to jump over pieces like the knights), the queen was a vizier (and the weakest piece in the game, as opposed to being the strongest nowadays), pawns couldn't move two squares on the first move, there was no castling or en passant, pawn promotion was limited in different ways, etc. The pieces didn't gain all of their modern characteristics until the late 1400s, although even as late as the 19th century either black or white could move first, stalemate rules were different, and (at least in some regions) ''[[GameBreaker the queen could move like a knight]]''. In the earliest versions of chess, it even had four players.

*** There was a much greater sense of Ork "civilian life", as Orks spend most of their time living in permanent towns. Groups and households erect houses out of rock, rubble and clay, fungus is cultivated for food, and more or less organized markets form where Orks and Gretchin come to argue, haggle and swindle each other. There is also traditional music, and even funfairs where Orks ride (extremely fast, extremely ramshackle and extremely unsafe) contraptions meant to titillate their need for speed and adrenalin rushes. Warlords are also assumed to keep permanent sedentary courts when not out at war. This remained present for some time -- ''TabletopGame/{{Gorkamorka}}'' uses similar setting assumptions regarding the Ork settlement of Mektown -- but later material recontextualized Ork culture as much more nomadic and disorganized, spending most of its time roaming from one battle to another and only forming temporary camps or planetary garrisons.
*** Orks who reached advanced age wandered off into the wild, produced a single offspring in a pouch, raised it until it was self-sufficient and then died; the youngster then lived in the wild until or unless picked up by an established tribe. This was later dropped in favor of Orks spreading spores as the live, and more as they die, which produce fungal growths that spawn new Orks..

** When Orks defeated an alien planet, they usually just shook it down for tribute and vassalized it, afterwards visiting it semi-regularly when the tribe wanted more weapons, food, or treasure. When an Ork force occupied a world, it tended to have surprisingly light touch since the Orks didn't care very much about what the locals did and mostly focused on their own internal drama and on whatever external foe required them to set up the garrison. In modern lore, overrun worlds are usually just razed to the ground and either abandoned or turned into full Ork worlds.
*** Ogryns sometimes associated with Orks, usually as a result of an Ork warband encountering an uncontacted Ogryn world before the Imperium did. The Ogryns themselves were described as fitting in well with the Orkish culture and combat preferences, but retaining a distinctly Human sense of cultural superiority regarding Ork Kultur, in large part due to looming over even the Orks in size. Modern lore drops this association entirely, and only mentions Imperial and Chaos Ogryns and does not describe Ork tribes as voluntarily associating with non-Orkoids.
*** Waaaghs worked differently from how they do in later lore. Firstly, the term "Waaagh" was spelled "Waa-Ork", which in-universe is a contraction of "We're Orks!". Secondly, they were produced by a random impulse among Meks instead of successful warfare. In modern lore, a Waaagh begins when a tribe or warband starts winning more and more fights, prompting physical growth among the Orks, supercharging the Orks' psychic field, and attracting more and more tribes until the group grows into a huge horde rampaging across the stars. A Waa-Ork instead begins when a Mek develops a sudden urge to build a gargant. Other Meks gather to him as they hear about this, resulting in an impromptu construction site and the Meks and their crews labor day and night to build the huge machine; as word spreads, more and more tribes are gripped by this frenzy, and their Meks begin building their own gargants or else start making as many weapons or war machines or ships as they can. This process can last for years, until entire armadas of machinery have been made, the Orks' war fervor has been stocked to a fever pitch, and every tribe and band grabbed by the frenzy unites in a single mass to wage war on the universe.

** The earliest edition of ''Warhammer 40000'' was also missing some concepts that are now critical to the setting, the most obvious of them being daemons. There were still ''monsters'' in the Warp, but they weren't actually the now-iconic daemons.

** Orks were very different in the first two editions of Warhammer 40K. They were notably better at shooting, but worse at close combat; they often wore bright and garish colours (as most factions did); they weren't a type of space fungus, but humanoids with an odd reproductive system; their clan system was described in great detail and had substantial effects on game play; they had lots of [[LethalJokeItem Lethal Joke Items]]. In the original rulebook they were subject to hatred of all enemies, an element of psychology that was never again part of the rules.
** Orks also ''looked'' incredibly different and acted less impulsive. Modern Orks came about due to the GaidenGame ''TabletopGame/{{Gorkamorka}}'', which codified their ''Film/MadMax'' design and hooligan-style approach to warfare. The older Orks had such oddities as beards, a more streamlined and straight-forward look for their tech instead of "cobbled-together scrap that somehow works", resembled the Huns and Mongolians a lot more and used Germanic iconography, including swastikas (one of many reasons why [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]] can be legitimately compared to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, since his banner often featured one in official art); and overall Orks looked a lot smaller and wimpier, compared to the hulking monstrosities they became. In fact, Gorkamorka's Ork models, while more muscled, are still somewhat tiny like the Rogue Trader miniatures, compared to later ones. Also, Orks had females and sexual reproduction (both as BrainBleach heavy as it sounds).

** Instead of the Big Four of Chaos Gods, three were described in first edition rulebook: Khorne, Nurgle, and ''Malal''. Their primary opponents were the Gods of Law, who were as alien as their counterparts but also much stuffier. This OrderVersusChaos angle was later simplified into "Chaos versus the mortal realms" and the Gods of Law were dropped from the roster, while Malal was removed due to a bad case of copyright issues. Furthermore, unlike later materials which focus on the Big Four almost exclusively, early on they were just the bigger figures among many.

** In the first edition of ''Roleplay'', Sigmar is mentioned in passing as being a minor deity and the patron of the Empire but not worshipped widely. It wasn't until later that he became the single most powerful and important non-Chaos god in the entire setting.
** Instead of the Big Four of Chaos Gods, three were described in first edition rulebook: Khorne, Nurgle, and ''Malal''. Their primary opponents were the Gods of Law, who were as alien as their counterparts but also much stuffier. This OrderVersusChaos angle was later simplified into "Chaos versus the mortal realms" and the Gods of Law were dropped from the roster, while Malal was removed due to a bad case of copyright issues.

** Instead of an assumption that player characters will have to deal with a limited set of usual villains (Chaos cults, Beastmen, Skaven, goblinoids), the bestiary was chock-full of all manner of weird creatures natural and unnatural, from Amoebas through Jabberwocks to Zoats.

** Early versions of the setting, in the 4th and 5th editions, had four major elven cultures: the cruel and piratical Dark Elves, the forest-dwelling Wood Elves, the haughty and reclusive High Elves, and the seafaring Sea Elves. The latter two lived in neighboring homelands, but were distinguished by the High Elves favoring a life of inward-looking contemplation and abhorring labor and danger, and as such having very little interacting with other cultures, while the Sea Elves were traders and explorers who were the most likely group for humans to have formal relations with; this split was also present in the first edition of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'', where elven player characters were assumed to be Sea Elves. Later material significantly deemphasized this distinction and ceased to mention Sea Elves, although a trace of that distinction is still present in Ulthuan, the High Elven homeland, being divided between the very magical, reclusive and haughty kingdoms along its inland sea, such as Averlorn and Caledor, and the more trade-minded and outward-looking ones along its outer shores, such as Eataine and Yvresse.

** Early versions of the setting, in the 4th and 5th editions, had four major elven cultures: the cruel and piratical Dark Elves, the forest-dwelling Wood Elves, the haughty and reclusive High Elves, and the seafaring Sea Elves. The latter two lived in neighboring homelands, but were distinguished by the High Elves favoring a life of inward-looking contemplation and abhorring labor and danger, and as such having very little interacting with other cultures, while the Sea Elves were traders and explorers who were the most likely group for humans to have formal relations with; the was also present in the first edition of ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'', where elven player characters were assumed to be Sea Elves. Later material significantly deemphasized this distinction and ceased to mention Sea Elves, although a trace of that distinction is still present in Ulthuan, the High Elven homeland, being divided between the very magical, reclusive and haughty kingdoms along its inland sea, such as Averlorn and Caledor, and the more trade-minded and outward-looking ones along its outer shores, such as Eataine and Yvresse.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000''"

** In early Warhammer 40K [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Illiyan_Nastase human-eldar hybrids]] were considered canon. Obviously there's a laundry list of issues with this now, both biological and world-building wise, and any recent Space Marine or Inquisition would purge such an abomination without a second glance.

** It took some time for Games Workshop to decide on what a Primarch actually ''was.'' The earliest references use the term to describe the leader of a Space Marine chapter (what would be called a Chapter Master in current lore). Other times, it referred to the founder of a chapter, but it was implied that they were completely ordinary [[SuperSoldier (by Space Marine standards)]] Marines with no particular significance otherwise, a far cry from the god-like beings created personally by the Emperor himself of the ''Horus Heresy'' novels. In fact, the first reference to Roboute Gulliman mentions his bones being entombed on Maccrage - contrast this with the current storyline, in which he is not only very much alive, but an active player in Imperial politics.
* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle'' had quite a few things that would be retconned and changed as it aged, of particular note is the 3rd edition supplements that contained rules for creating chaos champions, among the races that the champion could be were Lizardmen, even Slann! Naturally this doesn't make a lot of sense now, considering how that race is defined as being a staunch opponent against Chaos as well as the fact that the lizardmen are basically biological robots which would make it very difficult to convert them.
** In its earliest incarnation (Sometimes nicknamed "protohammer") Warhammer was arguably not even a Wargame. But more like a general D&D-style roleplaying game played at a slightly grander scale. The game was also pretty much devoid pf any plot and setting until the 1984 ''Forces of Fantasy'' expansion was released.
* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRolePlay'', the role-playing game spinoff of the wargame, wasn't renewed for some fifteen or twenty years, thereby preserving a lot of early canon (like several never-seen-again races such as the Fimir, or the Slann being the {{Precursors}} themselves) in places where the WFRP was popular.
** In the first edition of ''Role Play'', Sigmar is mentioned in passing as being a minor deity and the patron of the Empire but not worshipped widely. It wasn't until later that he became the single most powerful and important non-Chaos god in the entire setting.

*** The TabletopGame/{{Mystara}} Gazetteers for ''Basic'' made it clear that references to characters speaking "the common tongue" referred to the language that was most common ''where that character came from;'' the implication was that if they traveled to another part of the world, they wouldn't necessarily understand the language there. Due to a common misconception sticking and simple [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality play convenience]], later editions replaced this with a single universal language called "Common" that was spoken by most civilized beings.

* ''TabletopGame/AdvancedSquadLeader''
** The first ten scenario cards produced for Beyond Valor in 1985 had a number of redundant Scenario Special Rules which only make sense when one realizes they were written for a brand new game, and the publishers wanted to be sure that key concepts crucial to playing the rules correctly were properly applied.

*** Rules text was written in a much less formal style, the ultimate example of this probably being [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=202586 Rock Hydra]]. Some early cards referred to abilities as "special powers."

*** This is particularly awkward when a long-standing ability finally gets keyworded, but not ''exactly'' how the previous version(s) worked. One example is "Deathtouch," which causes any amount of damage dealt to a creature to be lethal--there were at least three previous versions, all of which worked slightly differently from both the modern version and each other.
** Also, many of the earliest cards use different words for core concepts and take less things for granted about the knowledge of the players. Cards often explain the mechanics of the game in the card itself, with examples and all, while nowadays these are nearly always left out because the templating is much more specific and streamlined, and the rules are much more codified, with whole sections on things that used to be (and in a few cases still are) specific to one or two cards. A good example of this is [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=208 Keldon Warlord]], whose original card text was: "The Xs below are the number of non-wall creatures on your side, including Warlord. Thus if you have 2 other non-wall creatures, Warlord is 3/3. If one of those creatures is killed during the turn, Warlord immediately becomes 2/2." The modern text is simply: "Keldon Warlord's power and toughness are each equal to the number of non-Wall creatures you control." Some cards (particularly in products aimed at newer players) will still have "reminder text", a parenthetical aside explaining in more detail how something works.

** Before creature types were standardized so that most creatures listed both a race and a class as separate creature types, they generally had only one or the other (for example, "Soldier" instead of "Human Soldier," or "Goblin" instead of "Goblin Warrior".) The changes to creature type necessitated a change to the Lord mechanic - initially, there were several creatures (like [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=479376 Goblin King]]) that gave bonuses to a certain creature type, but they would have the creature type "Lord" so that they themselves would not be affected. Since this would make no sense if all creatures of a given race shared that creature type, this was changed to the effect only affecting ''other'' creatures of that type.
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' was initially just ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy RecycledInSpace'' with things like the Eldar being explicitly called "Space Elves". It also wasn't actually called "Warhammer 40 000" until the 2nd edition (the first edition is called Rogue Trader)

** Space Marines started out being depicted with slogans printed on their armour that, as ''Magazine/WhiteDwarf'' put it once, "would embarrass an American GI". if contemporary Space Marines have slogans on their armour, it's [[GratuitousLatin usually Latin]], and one with the older ones would be given a stern talking-to by the Chaplain. The style of writing for the slogans has also changed drastically, from punk graffiti to medieval calligraphy.

** The first release of the Skitarii faction [[OneGameForThePriceOfTwo had its unit rules split across two codexes, "Codex: Skitarii" and "Codex: Cult Mechanicus"]]. All subsequent releases would merge the subfactions into a single "Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus."

*** All character abilities are grouped into "At Will," "Per Encounter" and "Per Day," much like the common cooldown mechanic of MMO games. Although "per use" abilities were hardly an innovation (going all the way back to the earliest editions), this made classes share the same basic engine, instead of spellcasters having their own, entirely separate subsystems for spellcasting. This was intended to result in classes that were much more closely balanced, but also had the secondary effect of making all the classes feel somewhat similar, particularly those that filled the same role.

*** All circumstances that affect the likelihood of success on a roll are boiled down to "Advantage" or "Disadvantage," so that when a character has the Advantage, he rolls twice and takes the higher, while doing just the opposite with a Disadvantage.

** Spell Cards were originally Magic Cards, which was changed several years in to avoid copyright infringement of a certain ''other'' type of [[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering magic card]]. (They're still called "Magic Cards" in Japan, though.) This resulted in a large-scale {{Retcon}} of an entire expansion name ("Magic Ruler" was reprinted as "Spell Ruler").

*** Polymerization initially said "Fuse two or more fusion material monsters to form a new fusion monster," without actually explaining how you are supposed to do that. (The explanation was in the rulebook, since at the time Polymerization was the only way to get out any fusion monsters- thus, the card's effect needed to be explained alongside fusion monsters themselves.)

** The vast majority of early Fusion Monsters that didn't debut in the anime looked nothing at all like their materials--at most, they were a generic monster that had vague aspects of their materials in their concept. For instance, Flame Swordsman looks nothing at all like Flame Manipulator or Masaki the Legendary Swordsman other than the broad concept of "is a warrior" and "uses fire" (which makes sense, as it was not a Fusion at all in the manga and anime). At most, they had the proper Type and Attribute combinations to make something broadly fitting the monster's concept, which led to some baffling combos like two female mages fusing to become a male musician, a medusa ghost and a zombified dragon resulting in a fossil mammoth, or two green serpentine dragons making an orange dinosaur-like one with two mouths. This originated from the games, which preceded the early card game and featured a fusion mechanic where fusing any two monsters that fit the concept (for instance, Flame Swordsman could be made with any Warrior and any Fire-type) resulted in something; for some reason, the card game decided to make those materials specific instead. Game-original fusion monsters that seemed to be truly combinations of their components didn't show up until Struggle of Chaos/Legacy of Darkness, and when generic-looking Fusions showed up again, they also had broad requirements, reminiscent of how the videogames did things.

** Of particular note is the fact that in its earliest incarnation ''40k'' was more than a little campy and silly at times, whereas now the setting is famous for being a DarkerAndEdgier [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Universe]]. Among the fandom, First Edition Warhammer 40k is usually only considered canon from a BroadStrokes point of view since large portions of its background information are no longer compatible with the current 40k universe. Of course even more modern "canon" tends to have [[DependingOnTheWriter difficulties with consistency]], so that's nothing new for the fandom.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle'' had quite a few things that would be retconned and changed as it aged, of particular note is the 3rd edition supplements that contained rules for creating chaos champions, among the races that the champion could be were Lizardmen, even Slann! Naturally this doesn't make a lot of sense now, considering how that race is defined as being a staunch opponent against Chaos as well as the fact that the lizardmen are basically biological robots which would make it very difficult to convert them.

** The ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' campaign setting was originally a more lighthearted and less serious setting. It was connected to Earth via magic portals- the Forgotten Realms cultures that seemed like {{expies}} of Earth cultures actually were the result of people finding their way through portals and becoming trapped in the Realms. Elminster, in early Realms lore, had NoFourthWall and ''knew'' that he was talking to the reader. He also had a habit of using magic to transport himself over to Ed Greenwood's house to meet up with wizards from other campaign settings in order to shoot the breeze and steal leftovers from Ed's fridge. As 2nd Edition progressed, these details started getting used less and less, and by the time Wizards of the Coast took over running the show they were out.

** First edition held a lot of allusions to Creation being [[EarthThatWas Earth in a past age]], with the various types of Exalted corresponding to the various WOD cliques: Lunars to werewolves, Sidereals to mages, Solars to hunters, and Abyssals to vampires.