AD&D First Edition inferior?

[Voneth]

What about a casual gamer who wants to play a few times each year? I don't think he'd want to pay $100.00 for something he'd take off the shelf once every three or four months.

Play is the operative word here. A casual gamer is not going to run a game. Thus your casual gamer is only going to need the PHB. If a casual gamer feels like he has to have all three books to play, he's not that casual.

And if you care, you can also repsond to my post on Page 11 that starts with:

"That's funny, it only cost me $20 to RUN, not play 3ed. for almost a year. I got the PHB after I was convinced the game had the flexibility to run the games I wanted to run, not the games that WotC/TSR wanted to run.

With only the PHB, I converted and ran a Castle Falkenstein game and even created a spell point/ skills and feats magic system. Our opponents were intelligent races, not cliché fantasy monsters, and we never used miniatures. I had a waiting line for my game." with a little of that "1st ed. imagination" I got more than my money's worth from DND.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25682&perpage=40&pagenumber=11

 

[Geoffrey]

Buy the D&D adventure game, which is exactly what you want, for 8 bucks! What's the problme?

From what I understand, the D&D adventure game doesn't allow one to run a campaign like the 128-page Moldvay D&D edition from 1981 (which covered levels 1-14).

 

[MerricB]

What 128-page Moldvay edition?

AFAIK, there was Basic D&D, which gave levels 1-3, and was excellent at doing so.

Then there was Expert D&D - an additional product - that gave levels 4-14. Unfortunately I've never seen the original edition of that product.

I really liked that Basic set (the second edition of it, the first, edited by Eric Holmes, really wasn't that clear). I'd love to see a Basic version of the new D&D done in such a manner, but more compatable with the new game than Basic D&D was with AD&D.

The adventure game for 3E is okay - I love the map & tokens - but without rules for creating characters, it does have a few flaws...

Cheers!

 

[Theuderic]

Did you take any writing courses, like, ever? I can only understand what you're trying to say about 10% of the time.

Qick question Rob. Which sentence is the rude (unecessary?) one: first or second?

 

[Geoffrey]

It only cost me $20 to RUN, not play 3ed. for almost a year. I got the PHB after I was convinced the game had the flexibility to run the games I wanted to run, not the games that WotC/TSR wanted to run.

With only the PHB, I converted and ran a Castle Falkenstein game and even created a spell point/ skills and feats magic system. Our opponents were intelligent races, not cliché fantasy monsters, and we never used miniatures. I had a waiting line for my game."[/I] with a little of that "1st ed. imagination" I got more than my money's worth from DND.

What about the person who doesn't want to create or convert whole campaign settings, or who doesn't want to create new magic systems and all the rest? In other words, someone who doesn't want to be a quasi-game designer, but just a casual player?

What about the person who wants his Dungeons & Dragons game to have dragons (and other monsters) in it? What about the person who wants magic items in his D&D game? The PHB doesn't have these. Make your own, you say? But what about the person who doesn't want to go to the time and effort to do that? What about the person who wants a COMPLETE game?

I would love for WotC to put out a product that could sit on every store shelf that has Monopoly on it. What would be even better than a 128-page book is a boxed set with two books in it (one for players, one for DMs) that total 128 pages, complete with a set of dice. Advertise the hell out of it. TV spots. Magazine ads in Time, People, Readers Digest, etc. Shove that thing right under the spotlight.

I keep hearing how phenomenally successful D&D is. I don't think it's nearly as successful as it could be, not by a long shot. Sure, it sells more than in the 2nd edition days, but very few people I know own D&D. Only a small fraction. But virtually everyone I know owns chess, checkers, and Monopoly. Lots of people I know own Battleship, Stratego, Life, Risk, and other such games. D&D doesn't sell beans compared to these games. Why?

1. You can't buy it very many places.
2. It costs $100.00.
3. It is complicated as hell.

I have no problem with a million and one D&D supplements, some of which being extremely complicated, wordy, expensive, and time-consuming. Only hobbyists buy them, and that's fine. But I think D&D is being short-changed by being content with things the way they are. There's an untapped market out there. I have faith in D&D that it could sell 10 times as many copies if only if would be packaged and marketed correctly.

 

[Geoffrey]

What 128-page Moldvay edition?

Merric, I'm referring to the 64-page Basic rulebook and the 64-page Expert rulebook (both published in 1981) considered as a unit. Sorry to be unclear.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

1. You can't buy it very many places.
2. It costs $100.00.
3. It is complicated as hell.

1) You can buy it at just about every bookstore in the country.
2) It costs $20. Okay, $30 now. Only one person needs to buy the DMG and the PHB. One of each book would be enough for a group of five to start playing, and you can split the cost five ways.
3) You'd have to dumb it down to the level of Hero Quest in order to even approach the sales of Stratego, Monopoly, or Risk. And even Hero Quest probably didn't sell that well. Monopoly only sells well because it's ingrained in our culture, it really isn't that fun of a game on its own.

Anyone who's 12 years old and knows how to read can figure out how to play D&D. I don't really see complicated being an issue.

 

[Claude Raines]

What about the person who doesn't want to create or convert whole campaign settings, or who doesn't want to create new magic systems and all the rest? In other words, someone who doesn't want to be a quasi-game designer, but just a casual player?

What about the person who wants his Dungeons & Dragons game to have dragons (and other monsters) in it? What about the person who wants magic items in his D&D game? The PHB doesn't have these. Make your own, you say? But what about the person who doesn't want to go to the time and effort to do that? What about the person who wants a COMPLETE game?

I for one, still don't buy all of your complaints. If you buy the PHB you spend $30. Then you have everything you need because the bulk of the rest of the books are in the SRD. The PHB has the magic system already in it. You don't need to create your own. The SRD has monsters and magic items. You don't need to print it all out. Just save it onto your computer and print what you need when you need it. You don't want to be a game designer? No problem, you don't need to be. You can download many free adventures, get new monsters, and get new magic items, spells, psionics, etc. all from the web. And it's FREE. The only thing you need to buy to run a complete game is the PHB. Having the other books on hand are a convience, but not necessary. You don't need to spend $100 bucks to play. Only $30. If you buy from Buy.com, you can get it for $18.87 with Free shipping.

 

[JeffB]

Merric, I'm referring to the 64-page Basic rulebook and the 64-page Expert rulebook (both published in 1981) considered as a unit. Sorry to be unclear.

Just to be a bit more clear, The 1981 Basic set was edited by Moldvay..the Expert set (1981) was edited by Zeb Cook and Steve Marsh..but most folks just say "the moldvay sets" since Tom wrote quite a few of the B & X modules that appeared on their heels.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I keep hearing how phenomenally successful D&D is. I don't think it's nearly as successful as it could be, not by a long shot. Sure, it sells more than in the 2nd edition days, but very few people I know own D&D. Only a small fraction. But virtually everyone I know owns chess, checkers, and Monopoly. Lots of people I know own Battleship, Stratego, Life, Risk, and other such games. D&D doesn't sell beans compared to these games. Why?

1. You can't buy it very many places.
2. It costs $100.00.
3. It is complicated as hell.

I have no problem with a million and one D&D supplements, some of which being extremely complicated, wordy, expensive, and time-consuming. Only hobbyists buy them, and that's fine. But I think D&D is being short-changed by being content with things the way they are. There's an untapped market out there. I have faith in D&D that it could sell 10 times as many copies if only if would be packaged and marketed correctly.

Back during the 80s, the simpler boxed sets of D&D appeared in toy stores like Toys 'r Us. I don't remember them flying off the shelves in those stores then, when D&D was riding the crest of popularity it had in that decade (which was very faddish, much as the Pokemon craze was).

While I wouldn't mind seeing this D&D Lite type of book, I very much doubt it'll help propel D&D any further upward in popularity.