TSR On the Relative Merits of the TSR Editions

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

OSRIC came out first but Labyrinth Lord took off soon after and publishers embraced it.

I have all the XRP OSRIC stuff but they are pretty much it for support stuff. I have a ton more LL stuff from a variety of publishers.

I definitely saw a ton of support for Labyrinth Lord, including a bunch of stuff from Necromancer/Frog God.

1E stuff is still coming out, though. Two new modules are on Kickstarter right now. And I think once the new edition of OSCRIC fulfills, we're likely to see an uptick in 1E/OSRIC stuff, at least for a bit.

 

[rabindranath72]

Started with the BECMI boxed sets, moved to 2e when it came out; as a forever DM, originally I only bought the DMG, thinking I could make the game "advanced" only by buying that book...
I faced a revolt of my group when I suggested we migrate our campaign to 2e, where Elves could be Thieves!
Anyway...ran the hell out of it (Dragonlance and Ravenloft where our favoured settings, then Dark Sun and Birthright) till 1997 or so, when we started using the PO books (so many toys!)...and our campaign collapsed. I still dislike them (Skills and Powers in particular); so many good ideas, but the implementation left us cold. So much so, that when 3.0 came out in 2000 we embraced it immediately as it promised to be close to 2e+PO, but in a leaner and cleaner package. Overall, we felt 3.0 kept its promise; we kept playing it as we did 2e and BECMI (and kept using a lot of the material of the latter two), so all "optimisation" and munchkinisms and abuses to which the system was prone (as we discovered online later), never surfaced in our games. We also never, ever used any splats for 2e nor 3.0, beyond the setting specific materials.
We skipped 3.5 after trying it (too many needless changes over 3.0 that distanced it from 2e; paladins with pokemon mounts?!), then I moved abroad in 2006 and lost my historic group.

It's been hard to find another stable group, so I mostly skipped 4e, mostly skipped 5e, definitely skipping 5.5 now, fell in love with 13th Age (still hoping to run a full campaign) and ran a few DCC games.
1e has a special place on my bookshelf, as I only acquired the books in 2006, so with the awesome powers of hindsight and experience, I could fully appreciate its virtues without rose-tinted glasses. I would gladly run a campaign with the right group of people.

Now I am preparing a 3.0 Birthright campaign (bare-bones conversion of 2e material) for my kids (which I exposed mostly to BECMI with some forays into DCC and 5e.) If I had to choose a "forever game" now, it would probably be 3.0 (PHB, DMG, MM1/2 only).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I have always (almost exclusively) played multiclass characters, so I've played a lot of Thieves... but it was never really my "primary" class so I didn't get to play with its Kits much, outside of the Swashbuckler.

Played a lot of Assassins, but only when I could use the 1E version or the PHBR15 Ninja.

My first 1e character was an Assassin. I played some Thieves, but they were a class that really took a lot of leveling for their abilities to be viable until 2e's kits came along.

 

[Voadam]

So, which edition of TSR D&D do you prefer, for your preferred playstyle, and what kind of game would prompt you to use a different one?

My preferred playstyle is fairly shaped by Moldvay B/X Basic which I mostly learned D&D from to start. As a DM lots of making rulings on what makes sense, even mechanical things like morale and reaction rolls are explicitly optional. Minimal mechanics including only minor attribute bonuses so 3d6 in order and go from there works compared to the incentives for over the top stats in other TSR editions (particularly percentile strength, AD&D reverse bell curve bonuses, and class prerequisites). A focus mechanically on dungeon crawling, wilderness, weird magic, and combat. An emphasis therefore on immersive roleplay and skilled play as a player.

I have had great experiences playing and running AD&D both editions, using elements from BECMI such as weapon mastery in an AD&D campaign I played in, and OD&D has a lot going for it in both the wildness of its tone and the simplicity of a number of its mechanics depending on sourcebooks used.

Playstyle I find works well in most any edition of D&D, whether mechanically stripped down or baroque. I have engaged in my favored playstyle in most every D&D that I have played as a player or a DM.

 

[The Soloist]

My best campaign as a DM was with 2e. My most enjoyable campaign, as a player, was with 1e. Since 1980, I welcomed all the new D&D editions and played them happily.

In part because of nostalgia but also as a counter-point to WoTC editions and as a rediscovery journey, over that last year, I've revisited TSR D&D editions, as a solitary player with the four classic characters. I needed to deprogram my brain from WoTC D&D because I hadn't played them for decades.

The one that was the most difficult to play again, was 1e. Digging inside the DMG for rules was exhausting. Still, the section on generating wilderness crawls, random dungeon generation, etc, remains very useful to this day.

2e (blue interior) came back to me quickly. I even remember several page numbers for the rules and spells. My players loved proficiencies, class kits and other bells & whistles. It was a bit too much for me as a solo player with four characters.

BX Moldvay is the edition I preferred rediscovering. Race-as-Class didn't bother me. It's lean but contains enough material to play for 'ever'. It's not a perfect game but it's so easy to modify, no wonder it's the darling edition of the OSR. I'm thinking of introducing it to my current group of 30-40 year old players.

 

[cbwjm]

2e (blue interior) came back to me quickly. I even remember several page numbers for the rules and spells. My players loved proficiencies, class kits and other bells & whistles. It was a bit too much for me as a solo player with four characters.

When you add in all the extra bits, it can significantly increase the time it takes to create a new PC, but the good thing about 2e is that you don't need to have things like proficiencies or class kits, though I'd still grant the fighter specialisation even if I wasn't using weapon proficiencies.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The one that was the most difficult to play again, was 1e. Digging inside the DMG for rules was exhausting. Still, the section on generating wilderness crawls, random dungeon generation, etc, remains very useful to this day.

As much as I love 1e, it doesn't always make running it easy.

2e (blue interior) came back to me quickly. I even remember several page numbers for the rules and spells. My players loved proficiencies, class kits and other bells & whistles. It was a bit too much for me as a solo player with four characters.

2e mechanics still live rent-free in my head. Before 5e came along, it was the edition I played the most and the longest. If I had to pick up an edition to run with the least amount of prep, it would be 2e or Basic.

 

[The Soloist]

As much as I love 1e, it doesn't always make running it easy.


2e mechanics still live rent-free in my head. Before 5e came along, it was the edition I played the most and the longest. If I had to pick up an edition to run with the least amount of prep, it would be 2e or Basic.

OSE + OSE Advanced is my go to now.

One of the things I don't like about 1e and 2e, this time around, is the percentile for 18 strength scores of fighters. Weird design decision.

 

[cbwjm]

OSE + OSE Advanced is my go to now.

One of the things I don't like about 1e and 2e, this time around, is the percentile for 18 strength scores of fighters. Weird design decision.

I think it's better to strip out percentile strength as a bonus only for warriors with 18 strength and instead make "percentile strength" a sort of training warriors have no matter their strength. A warrior with 14/76 strength would gain a +1 bonus to hit and +3 damage which makes warriors of any strength still deadlier than others when it comes to weapons.

Otherwise, I do think that the easy modifiers of OSE/BECMI is much easier to use (and remember). I'm not really all that surprised that when 3e came out they had a similar method for ability modifiers.

 

[teitan]

I’ve been revisiting 2e for a couple months now. Not running it but just reading the core rules and ya know I think it just might be my favorite edition. It streamlined some warts in 1e and fixed the Thief. My only grumble is Priest class. I have Legends & Lore now and Complete Priest and it works a lot better than I remember though I recall the FR priests being insane compared to L&L. Oh and Psionics. Give me alternate rules for some of those monsters.

It’s definitely not as intimidating as 1e. I even think the DMG is a valuable resource. Plus the spell books and item books.