OD&D Edition Experience: Did/Do You Play OD&D? How Was/Is It?

[CleverNickName]

Agreed. AD&D1e is Gygax expanding ODD. No race-as-class. We changed to AD&D as soon as we could afford the hard cover books with our measly teen budgets!

I'll get to AD&D in another poll, probably a couple of others as well depending on how much interest wanes over the weeks to come. I'm definitely curious about AD&D, because it's usually the first example that comes up when discussing "the Golden Age" and retro-clones.

 

[Oofta]

Ah, back in the day when men were men, hobbits were thieves and only elves could be fighter magic users. We didn't have any of that namby-pamby Good or Evil it was Law and Chaos like it should be!

I played all editions of the game. Because I'm old.

At the time it was fun because there wasn't another option. But we went on to the blue box set and then AD&D when they were released.

 

[JeffB]

With all of the talk about the Golden Age of Gaming, and all of the retro-clones floating around, it's made me curious about the older editions of the game. I'm curious how many folks on ENWorld have ever played the Original rules of D&D, and what their satisfaction level was. Or is, if you are one of the rare birds that still play the O.G.

By "played," I mean that you've been either a player or a DM for at least one gaming session. And for the purpose of this survey, I'm only referring to the Original D&D game, that was first published in 1974. Not 1E, not BECM, not AD&D...I'm talking only about this one right here, the one with a knight on the cover:

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Feel free to add nuance in your comments, but let's not have an edition war over this. I'm really just interested in hearing your stories of playing OD&D.

Started with it. Still love it. Love playing it. Warts and all. AFAIC, In most respects, Gary, Dave, et al got it completely right the first time.

 

[Nebulous]

Never got to play it. I started with AD&D. I always thought - wrongly - that D&D was inferior or a "kid friendly" version of the adult game.

 

[GreyLord]

I played it. I was wowed and dropped by it the first time I even brushed up against it. I didn't own the rules at the time, but it was a wondrous experience. I was not the star of the game, barely even knew what I was doing, but I loved every second of it.

Now, when I play, I insist on playing with the Greyhawk supplement at the very least. These days I don't really care to play with just the three original booklets as I don't like the advancement schemes and other things compared to what Greyhawk brought to the table.

However, back in the day, there was NOTHING that I had ever really encountered like D&D when I first ran into it.

It really was a game changer.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Playing OD&D today would be a very different experience to playing it in 1974, when very few people understood how it was intended to be played. A common misinterpretation of the rules frex was to assume that spells could be cast at will.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[atanakar]

I'll get to AD&D in another poll, probably a couple of others as well depending on how much interest wanes over the weeks to come. I'm definitely curious about AD&D, because it's usually the first example that comes up when discussing "the Golden Age" and retro-clones.

For clarification. Note that AD&D was published before the Basic (Red) and Expert (Blue) boxes by Moldvay & Cook (1981).

«The three core rulebooks were the Monster Manual (1977), the Player's Handbook (1978), and the Dungeon Master's Guide (1979)»

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Well, to be absolutely technical, I didn't play OD&D but the Holmes rules - but that's effectively the same thing, just packaged into a single book with bigger pages. It wouldn't have mattered a whit anyway if it had been 3-booklet OD&D rather than Holmes because we immediately began moving into AD&D with the publication of the MM in 1977 and continuing through to the DMG in 1979. That PRE-1E game hooked me solidly, got me playing D&D in the first place and has me still playing today. I have never played the Basic version (Moldvay/Cook) at all.

Really, however, it wasn't just the rules themselves as opposed to the rules versions that followed after. It was the fact that it was SUCH a different game to play than ANYTHING else at the time. It was a time when cartoons were only on TV on Saturday mornings, HBO existed but nobody had it, there were no cell phones, no home computers, the INTERNET was not yet a thing. The closest toy that anybody had to compare was probably playing in the backyard with green plastic army men.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Never got to play it. I started with AD&D. I always thought - wrongly - that D&D was inferior or a "kid friendly" version of the adult game.

This was also my perspective as a 12yo when we bought AD&D. It says “Advanced” on the cover!