OD&D Editions ... which one is the best?

Technomancer said:
Also, Elmore's fantastic art in Mentzer is much better than the stuff in Moldvay, which looks like the scribblings of a 4 year old by comparison.

(O_o) ...but there's no accounting for taste. I've never been a big fan of Elmore's, but I love Willingham's comic-book style. (& he's also still making a living as an artist today, I believe.)

S'mon said:
I agree with that - I haven't read Blackmoor, but B/X plus original-booklet M&T and U&WA as supplements is fantastic, I've done this a bit myself for my B/X pbem. I also occasionally use 1e MM monsters, or bits of monsters - eg my Ice Wolves are B/X dire wolves + a version of 1e MM Winter Wolves breath weapon.

Yeah. If you're doing more than a one-shot, steal from everything.

Remathilis said:
Can I throw a vote toward the Rules Cyclopedia? All the goodness of BECMI (minus I) in a easy to read, well edited package.

Heh! I know at least one person who would take issue with "well edited".

Philotomy Jurament said:
I ran the first session of a B4 (The Lost City) adventure for my two oldest children tonight using Holmes.

That sounds like a lot of fun, Phil!
 

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Philotomy Jurament said:
Things I don't like:

1. The weapon size/multiple attack rule.

My house-rules:

1. One attack per round, regardless of weapon.

The "daggers attack twice a round and two-handed weapons attack every other round" rule is something Dr. Holmes pulled straight out of his nether regions -- good call dropping it.
 

thedungeondelver said:

While that's somewhat...err...realistic, neither DUNGEONS & DRAGONS' hit point system nor combat system are supposed to be realistic.

But then we're all aware of this and can move on, confident that as many good ideas Dave had, this wasn't one of 'em...

If it was Dave's idea, that is. Ask Gary about how Blackmoor got edited someday.

Cheers!
 


MerricB said:
If it was Dave's idea, that is. Ask Gary about how Blackmoor got edited someday.

From what I understand, it went through several sets of editing passes/hands before it became the well-polished (ahem) gem in the form published....
 

MerricB said:
I'm glad I didn't start the game with Holmes. I don't know if I'd had survived the lack of understandable rules.

I hear this a lot. However, my experience was different.

I started with Holmes. I picked it up and the white box OD&D set close together. I had no problems playing with Holmes. OD&D, on the other hand, had me completely lost. Too many things were assumed you knew that weren't explained. Things were poorly organized. It referred to rules sets outside of the game (Chainmail for sure, was Outdoor Survival mentioned in OD&D or just AD&D?)

Of course, once the AD&D PHB was released I moved to AD&D and never looked back at BD&D at all (I occasionally browsed the OD&D supplements for ideas). I don't know if I read the Holmes set since 1980 and have no idea what happened to it (although I still have my copy of B1 that was in the set).
 





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