OD&D Edition Experience: Did/Do You Play Basic D&D? How Was/Is it?

[Hriston]

The Holmes Basic Set blue booklet was my first D&D book. I'm not sure what happened to the box, but I remember having the blue dice and the original version of B2 which came with the set (and which I still possess). Like others here, I played with these rules interchangeably with the AD&D books that were out at the time. Holmes Basic is particularly compatible with the AD&D Monster Manual which was released in the same year (1977) and shares with it five-point alignment. It's also nearly identical to OD&D (1974) so much so that I consider them the same edition and was tempted to answer in the other poll that I had played it although we were using Holmes. Some of the characters that I made with Holmes were later converted to AD&D using the PHB, at which point I realized the two systems weren't entirely compatible.

 

[JeffB]

The Holmes Basic Set blue booklet was my first D&D book. I'm not sure what happened to the box, but I remember having the blue dice and the original version of B2 which came with the set (and which I still possess). Like others here, I played with these rules interchangeably with the AD&D books that were out at the time. Holmes Basic is particularly compatible with the AD&D Monster Manual which was released in the same year (1977) and shares with it five-point alignment. It's also nearly identical to OD&D (1974) so much so that I consider them the same edition and was tempted to answer in the other poll that I had played it although we were using Holmes. Some of the characters that I made with Holmes were later converted to AD&D using the PHB, at which point I realized the two systems weren't entirely compatible.

Bingo- despite the title, the AD&D MM is 99% an OD&D book and completed before AD&D rules had been finalized. Not even any evidence of AC10 in the book. We used it right along-side the LBBs and Holmes* until the PHB was finally published about a year+ later.


*I still use it at the table when running OD&D. It's the only "AD&D" book that gets any play time still.

 

[Hriston]

Bingo- despite the title, the AD&D MM is 99% an OD&D book and completed before AD&D rules had been finalized. Not even any evidence of AC10 in the book. We used it right along-side the LBBs and Holmes* until the PHB was finally published about a year+ later.


*I still use it at the table when running OD&D. It's the only "AD&D" book that gets any play time still.

The copy of Holmes I used can be dated by the inclusion of B2 to between December 1979 and 1981, when I was between 6 and 8 years old, and after the complete publication of the AD&D core books. I just didn't realize it was a different rule-set until my characters "advanced" above third level. I think the suggestion in Holmes that games above third level should progress to AD&D was partially responsible for the misconception that the two systems were meant to be compatible. They were close enough that it didn't cause much of a problem. I later played B2 using AD&D.

 

[JeffB]

The copy of Holmes I used can be dated by the inclusion of B2 to between December 1979 and 1981, when I was between 6 and 8 years old, and after the complete publication of the AD&D core books. I just didn't realize it was a different rule-set until my characters "advanced" above third level. I think the suggestion in Holmes that games above third level should progress to AD&D was partially responsible for the misconception that the two systems were meant to be compatible. They were close enough that it didn't cause much of a problem. I later played B2 using AD&D.

You should check out the Holmes Manuscript BLOG I linked too. Dr. Holmes did not intend for players to go onto AD&D, that was a TSR addition. Of course, they were trying to pump up the oncoming ruleset.

 

[jasper]

Had to change my vote since we are talking about the holmes version. The copy was around and some of my dms would pull a monster or two out of it. But it was thumb book while waiting our turn booklet.

 

[Longspeak]

Also called the "Holmes Edition," with this awesome cover by John Blanche David Sutherland:

View attachment 119782

That cover is the cover on the one that got us started in 1979. I've mentioned before, my dad bought it for my best friend's birthday, and my friend figured we should at least try it. We played it for maybe a year before he got interested in the Advanced and we transitioned to that.

And I loved it.

 

[zenopus]

That is a David Sutherland cover.

I started with the LBBS and this and a MM. So yes. Played it. Still run it on occasion, especially now that Dr. Holmes' original manuscript made it's way into the public after all these years.

This BLOG series is a must read if you are remotely interested in the Holmes Basic set. It goes through all the Edits TSR did to the Good Dr.'s original manuscript and solves a lot of the :scratcheshead WTF? : rules issues about the published booklet.

The Holmes Manuscript

Summoning @zenopus

Thanks for the thread alert, Jeff!

I voted: I'm playing it right now and so far, I like it.

Yes, I do like it so far - since 1982. : )

While I'm not running a campaign currently, I have been running single-shot games at cons regularly the last few years, and I use Holmes Basic for these games, plus OD&D for the higher level material. I ran one at Scrum Con just two weekends ago: Scrum Con 2020 Post-Op, and am scheduled to run two games at Gary Con in a few weeks, if it goes on as planned.

I just happened to start a Holmes Basic Appreciation thread here last month, on the anniversary of J. Eric Holmes' birthday, which may be of interest to some who read this thread.

 

[zenopus]

The rulebook is a blue version of the box cover. You're probably remembering that. It did indeed stop at 3rd and players were encourage to switch to AD&D after that. The weird thing is that the monsters included some that were way above the ability of 3rd level characters.

In Dragon #52, in an article about the new (Moldvay) Basic Set, Holmes writes:

"I’m glad to see Moldvay included the dragons just as I did in the first edition. It seems almost silly to describe dragons in a book intended only for player characters up to the third level. On the other hand, think how disappointed you would be if you were an inexperienced player who bought a DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game and found nothing about dragons inside!"

And in the Holmes Basic rulebook he actually addressed how to creatively use higher HD monsters:

"There is endless opportunity for inventiveness in the game, however, and if a high hit dice monster is desired, ways can be invented to scale it down so that a low level party can have a chance of defeating it. If one wanted to use a chimera, for instance, in a campaign with low level characters, the creature could be scaled down. Maybe it ran into a high level magic-user and was partially shrunk by a magic spell, reducing its hit points. Or there might be a special magic sword, effective only against this chimera, hidden in the dungeon, and the adventurers given a hint or a legend that might lead them to it. In the interest of maintaining the balance of the game, however, a small or weak monster must not have a treasure anything like the hoard of a normal monster."

[In Holmes' original manuscript (linked above by JeffB), Holmes had "dragon" here instead of "chimera".]

So we can see that Holmes was aware of this issue. He also wrote in Dragon #52: "I struggled very hard to make all these things clear to the readers of the first Basic Rules and yet retain the flavor and excitement of the original rules."

So I think Holmes kept some of the higher HD monsters in the Basic rules because he wanted to preserve the flavor of the original game. He was also somewhat limited in that there weren't all that many low HD monsters that had full stats in the original game. Much of the vermin fell under a catchall "Small Insects or Animals" or "Large Insects or Animals" in the OD&D rules (In the manuscript, Holmes represented these with an entry for "Giant Animals or Insects", but TSR deleted this). Stuff like Giant Rats, Giant Centipedes, Giant Ants, Giant Spiders, none of these were fully described in OD&D and thus aren't even in the 1st edition of the Holmes Rulebook. TSR added them to the 2nd edition of Holmes after the Monster Manual had come out and included them with full stats for the first time.

Moldvay had more low HD creatures to start with, and added a number of others that were new to create a monster set focused solely on lower HD creatures (though he still had Dragons of all ages). Holmes had stuck solely with creatures that were already described in the OD&D rules.

 

[sunrisekid]

We played a bunch of times a few years ago and the sessions were among our most fun, most memorable. The lack of game mechanics made it feel very free-form. The game is still fun and definitely still playable.

 

[HarbingerX]

Holmes is one that is a great mystery to me. It's not that I didn't play it, but the set I played it I could swear the elves were handled differently than most remember it. I remembered my set had it that elves were Fighters and Magic-Users but had to choose each adventure which one they were going to be and advance in.

That's how elves work in OD&D. Perhaps you're remembering that version?