If you started playing D&D with the Basic D&D rules, which edition was it?

[Olive]

Until your other poll dead, I didn't even know there was a basic box before (or in fact after) the red one, which I started mucking around with when I was about 7.

Were there versions of the blue, gold etc. boxes (experts, immortals and so forth) for the other versions of the basic box?

 

[dead]

Until your other poll dead, I didn't even know there was a basic box before (or in fact after) the red one, which I started mucking around with when I was about 7.

Were there versions of the blue, gold etc. boxes (experts, immortals and so forth) for the other versions of the basic box?

I believe there were two version of the Expert Set, but only one version each of the Companion, Masters, and Immortal sets.

 

[Remathilis]

I started with the Cyclopedia (as mentioned before) but didn't start DMing until 2nd ed.

 

[Express]

Moldvay is the shizzle. And Erol Otus is the man

 

[Krieg]

As mentioned in the other thread I started with the Moldvay set. I am also reasonably familiar with the Holmes version & I own a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia.

Now here's my questions...does anyone have a reasonably detailed description of what the other versions contained?

I know the Mentzer set had two booklets (close to a hundred pages or so total I believe), but how did the rules compare to earlier versions?

Was the Cyclopedia based on the '83 ruleset?

What did the '91 basic box consist of? Was it essentially a prettied up re-release of the Mentzer books?

At least one (if not both) of the '96 & '99 sets were little more than a D&Dified board game...are there any major differences between the two?

etc etc

I started with the Cyclopedia (as mentioned before) but didn't start DMing until 2nd ed.

Didn't 2nd Ed come out two years before the Cyclopedia?

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

back in the old days, the Basic D&D set was just a really handsome and accessable package compared with the, then, 1E AD&D PHB.

I love my Holmes edition Basic Set dearly, and am still using its Zenopus's Tower sample dungeon in my Porttown campaign, but calling it "handsome" is further than I'm willing to go. Its art quality is far below that of its contemporary, the AD&D Monster Manual (1979), and the PHB just blows it out of the water visually.

Maybe other folks' "old days" were handsomer than mine...

 

[CarlZog]

Both this thread and the thread that spawned it would seem to indicate that the Enworld membership has been playing 20 years on average, and that - consequently - the average age is probably 30+.

Does this reflect the broader D&D demographic these days? Or does Enworld just attract an older, and obviously more sophisticated, gamer?

zog

 

[Orius]

Black box here. And it looks like I'm the only vote for it too!

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Are you sure about the date for the Moldvay set? I thought I started playing in 1979 (maybe it was 1980, but no later for sure) and I started with the Moldvay set.

 

[Krieg]

Basic D&D timeline...

http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/SetPages/Basic.html