Back to the Future: OD&D or BFRPG?

[SSquirrel]

I recommend any and every gamer with an interest in such things the following:

http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=28306&it=1

It's all of 6 bucks, and is an immersion into the very roots of the hobby.

In a nutshell:

--four races (humans, dwarves, elves, and hobbits)
--three classes (cleric, fighting man, and magic-user)
--no spells over 6th level
--everybody got d6's for hit points
--NO MAGIC MISSILE!

There are lots of other differences, but that's a few of the highlights.

Heck, for some pennies shy of $36 you can get Chainmail and the 5 original supplements too.
If my wife wasn't already on my case about various stuff I've bought lately, I would grab all this for the heck of it.

 

[dragonlordofpoondari]

... <stuff> ...

Interesting!

 

[RFisher]

I can never remember who this page belongs to, but I reference it often:

http://web.fisher.cx/robert/rpg/dnd-id/

Yikes! I really need to do some editing to the linked comments page. Lots of minor errors that annoy the perfectionist in me. (^_^)

(I really miss the ease of infogami.)

I’m very glad to know someone finds it useful!

 

[rogueattorney]

I would agree with this, as the last of the BECMI/Classic/Introductory line ended at the same time as AD&D 2e

No. The "Classic" D&D line ended in 1994. 2e was on the market for another 6 or 7 years until 3e came along.

 

[MonsterMash]

I'd use OD&D personally. Just wondering where Diaglo is though....

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Hopefully gaming. I wanted to this evening, but it fell through.

 

[Fifth Element]

In the original white box set, elves are multiclass fighter/wizards, with XP split each adventure between the two classes. At that point dwarves & halflings are restricted to the fighter class. There are no thieves.

So while technically dwarves, elves and halflings were not classes, each of these races had no choice in what class they could be. It's an academic difference; if a race can only be one class, then the race is a de facto class.

 

[RFisher]

So while technically dwarves, elves and halflings were not classes, each of these races had no choice in what class they could be. It's an academic difference; if a race can only be one class, then the race is a de facto class.

As I recall, elves could choose at the beginning of each adventure whether they'd be a fighting-man (fighting-elf?) or magic-user for that adventure. So, you could have straight fighter elves and straight magic-user elves...

...except that the level caps for both classes were low enough that it’s hard to imagine any elf PC that didn’t eventually wind up with levels in both.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

As I recall, elves could choose at the beginning of each adventure whether they'd be a fighting-man (fighting-elf?) or magic-user for that adventure.

Yeah, elves in OD&D are a little different (my OD&D page has a description of how I handle them). And the picture shows an elf with a beard, looking much like a skinny dwarf. Some referees make Elves wildly divergent in appearance, even in the same setting (one with an ass-head, a faery-like elf, a dwarf-like elf, a goblin-like elf, etc). Someone one the OD&D boards mentioned a cool idea that stuck with me, too: elves are these other-worldly beings that are really strange. They go off and meditate for a day or two, and when they come back, it's like they're an entirely different person -- things like that. This concept came out of the "switches classes" rules, which is an approach I get a kick out of. Take the quirky or strange rules in your game and see what you can make of it. That's one of the reasons I like OD&D's approach to magic swords, too: every magic sword has INT and Alignment, and magic swords' bonuses work differently than other magic weapons. Why?