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That's very sad news. Anyone have any idea who wrote the obituary? Sounds like it came from a gamer...

My currently most used set of dice is a yellow d4, orange d6, green d8, blue d12, red and white d%/d20s, and a bunch of extra red and white d6s. The former are authentic low impact "old school" TSR dice from the 70s (which I bought a couple sets of a year or so back from Noble Knight Games), the...

Indeed, because of the leisurely pace at which 1E hardbacks were released (1 per year, more or less -- there were no new AD&D hardbacks in 1982 or 84 and there were 2 apiece in 85, 86, and 87), it's possible to find 1E fans who draw their personal "line in the sand" after every single release...

1e had Gary Gygax and the Daves (Trampier and Sutherland) 2e had Easley and Elmore and design-by-committee 1e had an adult "swords & sorcery" aesthetic 2e had the Angry Mothers rule We can wrangle back and forth about the merits of specific rule-changes from 1E to 2E ad infinitum, but at...

We had some (though I don't know if I'd describe them as "good" ;) ) on the old Edition Wars board at dragonsfoot and the similar board at The Grognard's Tavern (neither of which exist anymore). It's not too surprising that you wouldn't have seen them here, since this site is more 3E-centric.

I've always seen it play out like so -- 1st session at the Keep gathering info, talking to NPCs and making plans; 2nd session in the wilderness searching for the Caves of Chaos and/or dealing with one or more of the wilderness encounters; sessions 3+ dealing with the Caves of Chaos at an average...

Certain sub-sections of the Caves of Chaos could be played effectively as a one-shot, but I can't imagine anywhere near the entire module possibly being played in that timeframe. Between the Keep, the wilderness encounters, and all of the separate Caves of Chaos (11 of them IIRC) this module is...

There were many printings (including two different covers) of the 1E DMG, but for your purposes (reading the advice essays) they're effectively identical. Any book with a cover that looks like this, or this, or this will serve equally well. What you want to avoid (for this purpose -- because the...

I'm not familiar with the adventure you're playing so I can't speak to it specifically, but traditionally the issues you're dealing with are dealt with two ways: 1) low level (especially 1st level) characters should only be adventuring in chaotic and disorganized environments, where the bad...

The saving throw charts for 1st ed. AD&D are found in the DMG, not the Players Handbook. P.S. After all the back-and-forth and confusion in this thread, glad to hear you seem to have found a version of the game that works for you :)

The "Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game" rulebook linked earlier in the thread is the 1994 release, which is a repackaging with more-or-less identical contents of the 1991 "black box" edition, published contemporary to (and serving as an introductory set to) the Rules Cyclopedia. FWIW the same...

Alas, nobody sells PDFs of the core OD&D rules. The only way to get a legal copy of these rules is to buy one off ebay (which will be likely to cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of $100). All hope is not quite lost, though. The D&D Basic Rulebook is available for purchase as a PDF...

Hmm, 1st ed. AD&D is cool in its own way, but is very different from OD&D (to the point that Gary Gygax insisted they were and should be considered as entirely separate games -- and not just as a legal defense for denying Dave Arneson royalties on AD&D products ;)). If you already know AD&D from...

The original set has a chart (two charts, actually -- one for men attacking (based on levels) and one for monsters attacking (based on hit dice)) with 8 armor classes, numbered 9 (worst = no armor) to 2 (best = plate & shield). The tables are arranged so that hitting an AC one step better...

Well, one of the advantages of OD&D's semi-freeform nature is that as referee you can mix & match whatever you want. If you want to use certain elements from Supp I (like the strength to hit & damage bonuses) but ignore others, that's perfectly within your purview. There is no "canon" for OD&D...

The ability score mods quoted by diaglo include Supplement I: Greyhawk, which added to hit and damage bonuses/penalties for strength, AC bonuses for Dex, and increased the hp bonus for high Con scores. None of those were present in the original boxed-set rules (which is what I was quoting from)...

Strength, Intelligence, and Wisdom affect XP for fighters, magic-users, and clerics respectively. If you've got a score of 13-14 in the appropriate ability you get +5% to earned XP. If you've got a score of 15-18 you get +10% (there are no ability scores above 18); conversely, a score of 7-8...

The "daggers attack twice a round and two-handed weapons attack every other round" rule is something Dr. Holmes pulled straight out of his nether regions -- good call dropping it.

Or, as those of us in the know call him, Brocktoon...

I recommend Benson DuBois as the majordomo.