D&D 1E Edition Experience: Did/Do you Play 1E AD&D? How Was/Is It?

[Musing Mage]

I am currently running a 1st Ed campaign, which is my system of choice.

I do dabble in 5th ed, but 1st ed is where it's at for me. I don't want to get into a whole essay about my reasons, but since getting into D&D in the mid-80s I've played BECMI, 1st ed, 2nd ed, 3rd ed and 5th ed... with some one-off forays into OD&D. I have never tried 4th ed.

And while I love elements of most of the editions I've played, ultimately I've found 1st ed to be the most engaging for me.

 

[John Dallman]

This week I'd like to examine the 1st Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Have you played it before? or are you still playing it? What do you think about it?

It's been the main edition of D&D I've played ever since 1979. The groups I play it with are still using the worlds and rules hacks they had established before 2e appeared, and some of the same characters. Personally, I didn't find 2e different enough to be worth a formal change-over. I've found the changes since 2e to be overly prescriptive about the kind of game they envisage; I like the all-inclusive Arneson approach much better than a "purist fantasy" style.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My $0.02

I first played it in 1977 in the library of East Middle School in Aurora, CO. The game was DMed by a fellow student who could have been a hobbit IRL. My human fighter with a 2-hd sword and another player’s MU down to his last MM were the last surviving members of the party, and we ran into a purple worm. Sparing the details, it was a close battle that ended when it was just me & the worm, there was simultaneous initiative, and it hit while I missed. TPK.

And I was hooked for life!

 

[erc1971]

For the 1st 10 years I played D&D you had D&D and AD&D - it wasn't called 1st edition back then. I loved it, played it every chance I could and avoided all other RPG's.

I would never go back to 1st however (running it anyways, I would play if someone offered to run). 2nd is my favorite edition, cleaning up a few rough spots and offering some cool customization options.

Eric

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

I also started in 1977 using the blue book. I went over a friends house who was a war gamer and we played one of the Avalon Hill war games "Midway". After lunch, my friend's brother wanted to join us and I remember them talking about this mysterious game "D&D" which they decided to teach me. My first character race/class was an Elf with a sleep spell. I remember fighting a bunch of orcs and putting them to sleep. I was hooked. I've played every edition since and with 5E and Fantasy Grounds, probably play more than I had since I was a kid.

 

[teitan]

Launching a 1e campaign in 2 months if I find enough players!

 

[CleverNickName]

Launching a 1e campaign in 2 months if I find enough players!

That sounds amazing! I've been threatening to do that myself (with B/X rules).

Be sure to post back and let us know how it goes!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Found this link in the other resurrected threads ...

1e will always be my nostalgic favorite edition of D&D. Don't get me wrong- while I loved knowing all the weird and arcane rules (and how they intersected), I never played with all the rules.

Which brings me to another issue that (if I have the time) I might post about. I have noticed that, over the past two decades, 1e has fallen out of favor and B/X (in terms of older editions) has become more popular. I think that there are a few reasons for this- one of them is because I think that B/X has shaken the original "you know, for kids!" stigma that it had when it was originally released. Another is that people truly appreciate the simplicity of the approach that Moldvay (and Cook) took in the design.

But behind that is that with the rise of 3e (and indie games), there is an increased emphasis in the hobby on rules qua rules. Whether it's the Oberoni fallacy or the concept of always playing by the rules, I think that when modern players look back at 1e, it becomes difficult to understand. Simply put, 1e was never meant to played completely as written, but was instead a collection of rules and subsystems that were meant to be used as needed- more of a standardized toolkit for gaming than a completely comprehensible ruleset.

Finally, while I will continue to joke about High Gygaxian, 1e had the perfect marriage of of form to function; the act of reading and understanding the game introduced you to the idea of something new and mysterious. It was impossible to delve into the baroque and contradictory language of Gygax without starting to feel the stirrings of something greater just waiting for you. The language invited you not just to play, but also to create.

 

[Orius]

I think classic D&D has the advantage over 1e in being clearer and more consistent. Gary wrote the core books separately, and there are contradictions in places. And Moldvay and Cook are much easier to read than the High Gygaxian. Then later 1e doesn't improve things, whether the powercreep of UA, or the overly complex systems of the Survival Guides and Manual of the Planes.

And as you said, the "kiddie" stigma is gone. The D&D system too is more complete than 1e in some ways, Basic covers dungeons, Expert moves up to wilderness adventuring and stronghold building, and Companion has dominions and mass combat. 1e handles dungeons alright, but wilderness adventuring gets a bit muddled as Gary tries to transition from using Outdoor Survival ad hoc to a more fleshed out system that the DM can customize. Both handle strongholds about the same, but 1e lowers the building costs by a noticeable amount. 1e doesn't cover dominions; the DMG talks about securing an area and clearing it of monsters, but none of the administration. I'm not sure what 1e was trying to do with mass combat, possibly Gary thought DMs would fall back on Chainmail or maybe Swords and Spells, but then Battlesystem came later. If one doesn't want to use B/X, there's always the RC which compiles everything into one volume, and Aaron Allston had a good informal writing style that's easy to follow yet explains things well. BECMI was around the longest, but it's split up among too many booklets and I don't like how Basic and Expert got reorganized. The D&D line I think has a more solid collection of adventure modules too.

Classic D&D was a really solid system, but unfortunately I'm not a fan of the race as class approach.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think classic D&D has the advantage over 1e in being clearer and more consistent. Gary wrote the core books separately, and there are contradictions in places. And Moldvay and Cook are much easier to read than the High Gygaxian. Then later 1e doesn't improve things, whether the powercreep of UA, or the overly complex systems of the Survival Guides and Manual of the Planes.

And as you said, the "kiddie" stigma is gone. The D&D system too is more complete than 1e in some ways, Basic covers dungeons, Expert moves up to wilderness adventuring and stronghold building, and Companion has dominions and mass combat. 1e handles dungeons alright, but wilderness adventuring gets a bit muddled as Gary tries to transition from using Outdoor Survival ad hoc to a more fleshed out system that the DM can customize. Both handle strongholds about the same, but 1e lowers the building costs by a noticeable amount. 1e doesn't cover dominions; the DMG talks about securing an area and clearing it of monsters, but none of the administration. I'm not sure what 1e was trying to do with mass combat, possibly Gary thought DMs would fall back on Chainmail or maybe Swords and Spells, but then Battlesystem came later. If one doesn't want to use B/X, there's always the RC which compiles everything into one volume, and Aaron Allston had a good informal writing style that's easy to follow yet explains things well. BECMI was around the longest, but it's split up among too many booklets and I don't like how Basic and Expert got reorganized. The D&D line I think has a more solid collection of adventure modules too.

Classic D&D was a really solid system, but unfortunately I'm not a fan of the race as class approach.

Right. This all goes to the exact same point I made- 1e suffers today because of the way that the hobby has shifted, both from the influx of the viewpoint instilled in 3e (rules) and the overall gestalt of the early 2000s in the indie game movement.

Viewing 1e in that light, it would look like a mess. However, viewing 1e in the way that it was played at the time, when it was much more of the base toolkit for the community to be expounded upon by tables, with the assistance of local and community norms, 3PP, and Dragon Magazine ... it was part of a much richer tapestry.