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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 1790194" data-attributes="member: 158">That can be easily attributed to the fact that it was new, at the time. This, plus the lack of twenty years of game development, hides quite a few minor flaws. Also, 1e's popularity was never greater than during the B.A.D.D. debacle of the early 1980's. This is something that Gary Gygax has actually substantiated during interviews. He actually said that the whole Satanic flap heralded a huge jump in sales at the time.Except that it doesn't come in a box anymore (much to my chagrin). "New" was part of the attraction back then, too, don't forget that. The innovation of the game was part of its success, as was the quality, the right people at the right time helming the project, and the political & social climate.If you look at the game, though, and do a critical analysis of the actual contents and organization of the original D&D game, it's nowhere near flawless. As a teaching tool to the uninitiated, it leaves a lot to be desired; it assumes you are a wargamer with quite a bit of experience under your belt. As a full supplement to playing a complete campaign setting, it's a bare-bones setup; however, some do see this (as Diaglo does) as one of its greatest strengths. I see it was a complete non-draw to someone who wants to start playing with no prior knowledge.Looking back at OD&D, and AD&D, if it weren't for the Basic editions, I never would have played! It was only by the grace of Moldvay <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> that I went before AD&D, and only years later that I figured out all the rules I had gotten wrong because I simply assumed the same rules from Basic D&D or imported my own. AD&D, nor the Basic set, made any acknowledgement of each other, no info on how they differed, or any such thing that would have saved me years of floundering around not knowing how to play the game even remotely true to the rules. Fast forward to years of hindsight, and years of seeing shortcomings noted and addressed. The 3E PHB does IMO a much better job of teaching its rules than AD&D did; it does a better job of keeping on target to its stated goals of encouraging variety, but within the rules rather than breaking them to encompass the same. Even then I recognize big flaws in the structure, in that those self same goals make it harder to design outside the box of the interlocking of feats, skills, and a unified XP chart.Good game? Yes!Better Game? I have to agree to disagree.</blockquote>

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