Why people like to play OD&D (1974)

[Herremann the Wise]

One thing I miss but will probably be flamed for is minimum stats for classes.

No flames here. I don't know if I'd ever like to see them return; but at the time, damn were those classes special! Nostalgia is such a sweet beast.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Jupp]

The reasons why we play OD&D from time to time:

-Simplicity
-Very light rules
-The rules concentrate on the bare necessities
-Superfast character generation
-DM has full power so the players can concentrate on the story, not on the rules.

Nostalgia is not part of the list since most uf us were not exposed to D&D before AD&D 2e (our DM played 1e though)

Recently OD&D has started to give way to C&C and perhaps it will be replaced entirely by it..We'll see.

 

[Delta]

Finally, new players that are not sure whether they would get into the game cannot get passed character creation. My wife enjoyed creating her character up until we got into the skills and feats. That became such a complex affair that she decided she didn't want to play after all. The new version of DnD makes character creation fun for us older fans, but the newer fans are intimidated by it and it is harder to convince them that the game is fun when they find character creation so mathematically complex.

Boy, do I agree with that in spades. My girlfriend on non-gamer friends had the same experience. (However, I have definitely been badly flamed for saying the same on these boards in the past.)

One key thing I wish I saw in 3E/4E (whatever) is for initial 1st-level character creation to have a very limited number of decisions necessary built into the rules. For example, (1) class, (2) abilities, (3) equipment. As you start adding dozens of skills, multiple feats, scores of spells, etc., it becomes overwhelming to the new player.

 

[diaglo]

Why do you like to play OD&D?

taking the warning into account. i'll stick to answering the first part of your two part question.

0) because it is fun

1) it is simple, but at the same time complex.

a. straight rules wise you just roll a dice to hit. a dice for damage. a dice for saves. and there are very few modifiers.
b. complexity wise you can add more modifiers. +1 to hit for str is the max you are gonna gain with the 3 booklets. toss in Supplement I Greyhawk and suddenly you have a bonus higher than +1 possible.

stats are based on a human or demihuman PC. that is what the game expects you to play. if you want to play as a player something else talk to your referee. work with him.

addition is always easier to learn than subtraction. add rules to up the comlexity not take them away.


2) it is mallable. i can run space aliens, nuclear fallout victims, lost time travelling cowboys, and wizards all in the same campaign.

3) dwarven wizards exist. they are called gnomes. gnomes are dwarves in OD&D. i had a dwarven paladin in the campaign. i have a half-faerie ranger in the campaign. think drow. i had a half-ogre Monk herbalist. i have a human psion cleric of Law.

4) three alignments. Lawful (civilized), Neutral (treehuggers), and Chaotic (there will always be more. destroying things is fun). No Good. No Evil. But yet they are there too.

5) the players are driving the campaign. i am the referee. i just make rulings on what they are doing. the rules are guidelines.

we are currently using 14 published adventures, 7 campaign settings, and 27 years of homebrewed notebooks.

 

[diaglo]

I asked diaglo about that a while ago by private message, and it didn't turn out badly. (at least that I know of!)

I won't repost a private convo without permission, but I hope he chimes in here with the answer he gave me - it certainly shed some light on his posting habits.
-blarg

i've got no problems with it.

 

[SteveC]

This is a very interesting topic. For my part, OD&D was the game I started with, so it has a special nostalgic fondness in my heart. I've thought about it quite a bit recently, in the context of games like C&C or (to a lesser extent) True20.

For me, the good thing about OD&D is a double edged sword: there aren't hardly any rules, and there is no unified mechanic behind the game. If you want to have your character try something, you talk to the DM and he figures out how to accomplish it and that's that.

If you have a good DM, this makes for an absolutely amazing game. I have played in games where the DM could create rules for specific situations on the fly that were much better than anything the 3X designers came up with using months of development and play testing. At least it seemed that way at the time anyway. That's the good part.

The problem is that for every game I played in like that, there were also many games where the GM was reading from a script from an old Infocom text adventure game: "you can't do that, at least not now!" Grrr, very frustrating.

I guess what I'm saying is that being an OD&D DM is a skill that, if done right, makes for a truly awesome game. It can also make for several hours of frustrating tedium. I would expect that Diaglo is that first kind of DM, and has played with a lot of them, so for him, there's no substitute!

That's just my $.02.

--Steve

 

[Yellow Sign]

Humm things I remember.
1. Negative Armor Classes!
2. Ability limits based on Race and Sex.
3. Limits on class levels depending on Race. My Elf can only go to 12th level in Fighter or something like that.
4. Neat names for your Classes level. My 2rd level Thief is a Cutpurse!
5. Only Thieves could climb!
6. Cool Demons! I love me some Type IV Demons!



Other than that I cannot remember too much about how the actual game played. But I was just a kid in junior high at the time and I had fun. Though I was really stoked when the new Players Handbook came out!

 

[diaglo]

Humm things I remember.
1. Negative Armor Classes!
2. Ability limits based on Race and Sex.
3. Limits on class levels depending on Race. My Elf can only go to 12th level in Fighter or something like that.
4. Neat names for your Classes level. My 2rd level Thief is a Cutpurse!
5. Only Thieves could climb!
6. Cool Demons! I love me some Type IV Demons!


Other than that I cannot remember too much about how the actual game played. But I was just a kid in junior high at the time and I had fun. Though I was really stoked when the new Players Handbook came out!

wrong edition.

1. no negative armor classes in OD&D.
2. no change in stat for race or sex
3. there were class limits. but 12th lvl is too high for an elf. these are based on body shape and or other factors.
4. yes
5. no. everyone can climb.
6. yes. esp when you add supplement III.

 

[Yellow Sign]

wrong edition.

1. no negative armor classes in OD&D.
2. no change in stat for race or sex
3. there were class limits. but 12th lvl is too high for an elf. these are based on body shape and or other factors.
4. yes
5. no. everyone can climb.
6. yes. esp when you add supplement III.

Well like I said its been a long long time since I played.

 

[diaglo]

and here is a sampling of how OD&D works: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=92669

as told by some players from the characters pov