I hear this so often, but it is utter balderdash. I'm sorry, but it is.
I started playing with OD&D rules, never saw chainmail in my life, and it was all great. More than great, it was WONDERFUL! Supplement 1 (Greyhawk) improved things further.
I see lots of people with some kind of fixation on chainmail, and wargame beginnings underpinning everything but I was there, and chainmail... just wasn't!*
The rules were simple, straightforward, fired the imagination and just worked.
Well, clearly you were much smarter than I was at that age. I can't judge your experience, but I can relay my own, which was that reading the OD&D rules, after reading the BD&D rulebook (and having experience in wargames like PanzerBlitz, Tobruk, and Squad Leader), I was completely flummoxed:
- The cover reads "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures" ... so coming from a wargaming background, I was expecting a complete product.
- The "Recommended equipment" on Page 5 of Volume 1 included two other games; Outdoor Survival and Chainmail.
- The "alternative combat system" on page 19 of volume one has some tables, but no explanation of how they were to be used.
- Page 8 of Volume 3 mentions that "Melee is fast an furious. There are ten rounds of combat per turn." But then goes on to talk about secret passages. The surprise paragraph below that talks about a "free move segment", with no prior references to move segments and how many there are or how they interact with the "rounds" and "turns" previously mentioned.
- The example of play at least clears up how exploring goes, and on page 15 of volume 3 we finally get the reference to OUTDOOR SURVIVAL, where it says that "off-hand adventures in the wilderness are made on the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL playing board," with a page of information on how to use the ponds on said board as castles and such-like, though subsequent references to blank hex paper make it clear you can work around that requirement.
- Then on page 25 of volume 3 we get to a discussion of combat and hear "The basic system is that from CHAINMAIL, .... Melee can be conducted with the combat tabl;e given from Volume I" [How, there is no explanation?] "or by the CHAINMAIL system." It goes on on that page to talk about written combat orders and how missile firing is allowable at the end of a turn, and after a page of air-to-ground combat tables another cryptic reference to combat taking place when you are within melee range of 3" ... but again no explanation of how combat is to be conducted.
- Finally on page 31 of Volume 3 we get to MELEE, which reads "Use Man-to-Man rules as found in CHAINMAIL." There are some subsequent notes but none which explain how combat is to be handled. GREYHAWK has an "Alternative Combat Section", but that's just a damage modification table by weapon time.
I'm sure many groups took the mix of information available and created a combat system that decided who went in what order, and what takes place when in combat, and how spellcasting mixed with that melee and missile firing. But I reiterate my experience: by reading the rulebooks themselves, the game is incomplete, and a reference to other material, or retroactive experience (in my case from the BD&D rulebook) is needed to puzzle out the game.
Don't get me wrong, OD&D is great, but I think any view of it as being in some way complete or self-contained is a view through nostalgic rose-colored glasses.
If you feel otherwise, my challenge to you is this: explain how a combat containing melee, missile fire, and spellcasting is conducted using only direct references from the three volumes of the OD&D rulebooks.
