Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and the original Basic D&D - your experiences?

[MerricB]

A recent comment on a blog caused me to wonder about how others perceived Basic D&D compared to AD&D back in the day.

My long-held opinion has been that AD&D was regarded more highly (primarily due to the options it gave players), whilst Basic D&D, whilst I considered it the rules to be much clearer, was too limiting in character options. (It should be noted that for a very long time, I didn't own the Companion and later rules, and so domain-building was never part of my play). However, I wouldn't at all be surprised if I've projected my opinions on to how the world in general saw the game.

Incidentally, I just went through the RPG Geek lists and worked out number of releases by year for each system (although some of the releases aren't really that big or even books, it still gives an idea.

Releases by Year: Basic - AD&D
1981: 4 - 12
1982: 2 - 13
1983: 11 - 14
1984: 17 - 16
1985: 13 - 21
1986: 11 - 19
1987: 16 - 21
1988: 7 - 18
1989: 10 - 4 - 36 (Basic, AD&D, AD&D 2E)
1990: 6 - 46 (Basic - AD&D 2E)
1991: 10 - 44
1992: 14 - 60
1993: 7 - 62
1994: 1 - 69
1995: 0 - 86

Cheers!

 

[Iosue]

Well, I'm going to take slight issue with your nomenclature. I never thought of it as Basic vs Advanced. It was always D&D vs AD&D. And D&D was what we started off with and played the most, so it never felt like "basic" or "limited". I owned all the core books for AD&D, both 1st and 2nd Editions, and they were great for riffing and inspiration, but when it came time to play, D&D was what we went with. It was simply more straightforward and a whole lot less fiddly.

Even ignoring the Companion and Master Rules, the Basic and Expert Rules provided for both dungeon and wilderness exploration, as well as stronghold building. Once we had those, the Advanced rules had diminishing returns for the complexity of their systems. The prime examples being initiative in 1st Edition and reaction rolls in 2nd. I was "taught" by Moldvay, Mentzer, and B2 that keeping the game moving was of paramount importance, and to keep book-referencing to a minimum. With D&D I could do this. With AD&D, I never felt I could. Initiative? Both sides roll, high roll wins. No need to reference weapon speed or casting times. Reaction rolls? 2 is very bad, 12 is very good, 3-5 is bad, 9-11 is good, 6-8 roll again. No need to refer to that baroque table in 2e.

Of course, conceivably with regular play of AD&D it would have come just as easily and naturally, but with D&D working perfectly fine, I was never motivated to go through the trouble.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

I first started D&D with the Red Box in 1988 and skipped AD&D (1st Edition) entirely by moving on to 2nd Edition in 89 or 90 (can't quite remember).

Despite mostly moving on to AD&D 2nd Edition, I grabbed the Rules Cyclopedia as soon as I could after it came out and used it for inspiration and simple reading value.

It was a case of simply preferring the extra options in AD&D (2E), though, now, nostalgia skews my preferences toward Basic.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

My long-held opinion has been that AD&D was regarded more highly (primarily due to the options it gave players), whilst Basic D&D, whilst I considered it the rules to be much clearer, was too limiting in character options.

Thuis reflects my view as well. My first contact was the Moldvay Basic set, and I didn't have any chance to runa a or play in any RPG whatsoever before.

When it finally clicked in my mind and I sort of understood what this curious book could offer me some limitations immediately started screaming at me: race as class, limited to level 3. Another rule had an impact on my view as well: different damage expressions for weapons were an optional rule and the weapon list was rather short.

I immediately evaluated my options using the mail order catalog of the only shop I knew of and saw AD&D. The advanced version had to be better, right? I ordered the DMG. With quite some work I found out that race and class were disjunct in this game and the level limit was gone. Sold!

I never actually played Basic D&D until 25 years later.

 

[mach1.9pants]

For my time growing up with BECMI (really BE) then moving into AD&D, the main reason we went to AD&D was because it said 'advanced' ergo must be betterer. What actually happened was we ended up playing BECMI with AD&D classes, spells, monsters and a few other bits thrown in. The AD&D rules were so complex and cumbersome that we just stuck with what we knew. E.g. Initiative and combat order - have a look for David Prata's 10 page BTB AD&D combat document ADDICT.

So our core was BECMI but with AD&D specifics attached. And we called it AD&D, cos we were ADVANCED D&Ders by then, with hundreds of hours of gaming under our belts.

The 2nd Ed came along and it was easy enough to run as written, mostly.

 

[pogre]

My experience was similar to Iosue's. We started with the O-D&D three-book boxed set. Picked up Chainmail, Blackmoor, and then the Basic set came out. Honestly, we figured out a lot of things we were doing "wrong" because of the basic set (1977 Homes edition). We then picked up all the D&D and A-D&D books as they came out and integrated them into our game. Our game remained in terms of mechanics, largely basic throughout the time we played.

We always considered ourselves Advanced D&D players, but really it was a huge mish-mash.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I was introduced to RPGs/D&D by someone who played AD&D 1E (verbally), but the first version I actually played was 2E (the first "RPG" I owned the Ian Livingstone's The Riddling Reaver a few years before - my mum confiscated it because it was "too scary" for a seven-year-old, which was probably fair).

The 1E players sneered at non-AD&D, 2E DM who showed me how to play didn't think one needed to play D&D to understand AD&D, and the general attitude I got from Dragon, other players and so on, was that D&D was this somewhat old-fashioned, kid-oriented thing that was borderline obsolete.

I did get to play Red Box D&D a few years later, and thought it was cute, but saw no purpose for it. We liked RC D&D, though, which we played after AD&D. Complete, elegant, together. It never replaced AD&D 2E for us, though.

But yeah, general feeling I got? "D&D is a starter set for AD&D". The internet did nothing to dispel this. I didn't hear about people commonly playing D&D instead of AD&D or 3E until the mid-'00s.

 

[Raith5]

I was introduced to D&D through the Moldvay Basic set in 1982 but my and I friends transitioned to AD&D at rapid speed. I dont think it was some great awarness of the difference in game mechanics but I think we generally saw "advanced" as a challenge compared to basic.I think the big thing was that there seemed to be more AD&D adventures and of course a higher range of play.


One other thing that captured my eyes as a kid was the detail in AD&D - I think the general style and information in the AD&D PHB and DMG really captured my attention.

 

[pemerton]

I started with Moldvay Basic and then Cook/Marsh Expert in 1982, and moved to AD&D in 1984.

The main attraction of AD&D was the extra detail/options: sub-classes (especially illusionists), separating race and class, scimitars as well as longswords, etc. Even while playing B/X we wrote up simplified versions of illusionist spells copied from a friend's PHB.

The most important details in action resolution I can think of that distinguish B/X from AD&D pertain to (i) initiative and (ii) finding traps. In B/X everyone has a 1 in 6 chance to find traps; this is absent from AD&D. I can't remember how we handled this when we transitioned. As far as initiative and action economy are concerned, I think we tried to follow the AD&D rules but they are very confusing (and arguably confused), and so ended up with some sort of mish-mash of both systems. We did use the AD&D rules for segments of surprise.

 

[Henry]

Started with basic Moldvay box, went to Expert box, jumped to Advanced after that because I was a kid at the time, there were no companion or master sets yet, and i found "advanced" D&D so i thought that was the next book in the series, logically. I didn't find out the truth till years later.

D&D is what I've used at cons for a few years now if I run quick pick up games, just because people can make a character in literally five minutes, and go! As a regular home game, among the groups I was part of, it seemed to have that "kiddie" or "young adult" stigma, so we generally didn't use it. Maybe it was in the way TSR was marketing it in the 80's or something? After all, they didn't have to pay royalties or attribution to Dave Arneson for "Advanced" D&D, just D&D.