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

[Mannahnin]

Sounds like you had a copy of 1974 OD&D's Men & Magic, then, and memory is playing tricks.

It's done that to me.

 

[Celebrim]

That's why I said I think I may have had a proto-type or something. The copy I had a long time ago had the elves deciding what class each time between Fighter and Magic-user.

White Box OD&D "Of Men and Magic". You could call that a prototype I suppose. The 1st printing is a valuable collectible if in good condition, though its far more likely you have a later printing (4th most likely).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think this was pretty common, especially if your group were kids. I started on B/X in 1981 but quickly moved to AD&D, but still used all those B/X modules and even monsters pulled from the B/X book if we had it handy and not the MM laying around.

For those of us that were fairly young when we stepped into the world of AD&D, BECMI & B/X were easier to understand than the shambolic AD&D. I know a lot of how we ran AD&D was based on BECMI with AD&D rules bolted onto it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I do have to note that how similar the BECMI games are to OD&D is a matter of perspective. Ask someone who started out in late '75 (and thus post Greyhawk) where races were treated like classes or not for example, and you'll probably get some pretty varied answers (this largely being because the thief had thrown a wrench into easily reading it that way).

 

[Marc17]

I played it and I liked it. We played it instead of BX and BECMI and even had arguments with others about it. (we did use Mystara as a setting though sometimes). It was a mess of rules and we'd literally sit and read the books to find rules and subsystem we didn't even know existed earlier while it wasn't our turn. That sometimes let to campaign changing events as people rolled for psionic, decided to get henchmen or hirelings, or buy magic items. Everybody pretty much moved to AD&D2E though without issue or tears.

I still end up in an 1E AD&D an ongoing game every decade or so. Some for fun. Last one was specifically an attempt to play RAW. Later, a read through of the 1E DMG revealed some rules we missed as we had no idea they were even there (and lots you figured would be, but aren't). Still like it better than other games like Castles & Crusades which left me wanting to either play 1E or 3E but not C&C.