OD&D PDFs at RPGNow

[Griffith Dragonlake]

First off, I'll state that I believe every serious player and DM should own a copy of the complete OD&D set if for no other reason than to understand the history of the game and to see the original artwork and rules for the iconic classes, monsters, spells, magic items, etc.

The new OD&D boxed set is a very good scan and well worth the USD 5.95 that I paid.

The Greyhawk supplement is a mediocre scan of a really crappy original. There are hand written notes in what appears to be pencil throughout the book. An utter and total ripoff in my opinion. My advice is to do not buy this scan unless you are desperate.

The Eldritch Wizardry is a decent or good scan but the original has the name Brent Johnson scrawled along the inside cover. My advice is to hold off buying this until RPGNow posts a new version or try and ignore the offending page.

I haven't purchased the other PDFs as I acquired Blackmoor back when Dave Arnson gave it away for free (excellent scan of an excellent copy). Chainmail I bought when it was first offered online in 2001 (very good scan of a very good copy). Gods, Demigods, & Heroes I have a hard copy. Spells & Swords is just an updated version of Chainmail and doesn't really add anything to the history of the game — I also never knew anyone who actually used those rules anyway.

 

[Tiberius]

I picked up the Rules Compendium for about the same price, and am fairly pleased with it. There are a few pages that I've noticed to print poorly, but on the whole I'm pleased.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

While I already own a dead-tree copy of the OD&D rules (mine is the OCE, too), I'm glad to see this, as it fills a big hole in the availability of the older rules in PDF.

I never played using the OD&D rules, back in the day. My first set was Holmes (which is very similar to OD&D), but it quickly morphed into a mix of Holmes and AD&D (with some B/X stuff thrown in, too). I've recently been running a B4 Lost City game using Holmes and OD&D, and I've discovered that the OD&D rules suit my gaming exceptionally well. You have to "forget what you know" when running OD&D, though, because there are some differences that can surprise you (e.g. Str doesn't affect to hit, Dex doesn't affect AC; magic armor works differently; all weapons do 1d6 damage; if you include thieves, they don't get an ability to find traps, only to remove them, etc).

Explanatory note:
When speaking about earlier editions, I use the following terms:
OD&D = the original three books, perhaps with a few house-rules cherry-picked from the Supplements and later editions.

OD&D + Supplements = the original three books plus most of the material from the supplements. Such a game would greatly resemble AD&D.

AD&D or OAD&D = 1E AD&D. While this technically includes the later stuff like OA, WSG, DSG, etc., I usually don't think of or include those.

AD&D2E = 2E AD&D.

Holmes = the blue-book edition.

B/X = the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh basic and expert sets with Erol Otus covers

BECM = the Mentzer basic/expert/companion/masters sets with Elmore covers

RC = Rules Cylopedia (Mentzer compiled and jiggered around a bit)

 

[Erik Mona]

For what it's worth, you can find this stuff at Paizo.com too.

--Erik

 

[Delta]

I also just bought the OD&D set and Rules Cyclopedia yesterday in PDF form. The OD&D Supplements I'd bought already. Two alternate opinions to the OP:

(1) I have no problem with the OD&D or Greyhawk scans. Yes, Greyhawk has handwritten notes (actually the official errata) pencilled in margins -- I'm okay with that. It's Eldritch Wizardry you need to watch out for, because 2 pages are entirely missing (pages 4 & 53 accidentally replaced by duplicates of other pages).

(2) Swords & Spells is *so* not an update of Chainmail. Chainmail is a working game unto itself, while Swords & Spells is an attempt to backtrack from the D&D rules back to a mass battle ruleset. I hate to say it, but to me it's the weakest thing Gygax ever did, and as a teenager I naively suffered with this almost totally unplayable ruleset, assuming that's what miniatures wargaming was like. Instead of dice-rolling, you're sitting there with a hand calculator crunching average hit points for thousands of soldiers, subtracting expected hit percentages times average damage values, dividing to see if figures are lost, tracking percentage of unit lost for morale checks, etc., etc., for every attack. Very unlike Chainmail or any other miniatures ruleset.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've had all of this but Greyhawk and Blackmoor in a big black notebook since the 1970s, when my dad photocopied it all off someone he was in the army with. I think it's great for the atmosphere of it all. I'm not sure that every player needs it, because I'm not sure everyone's going to get much out of it. It's nice from a historical standpoint that PDFs of it are being distributed, however.

 

[Glyfair]

The Greyhawk supplement is a mediocre scan of a really crappy original. There are hand written notes in what appears to be pencil throughout the book. An utter and total ripoff in my opinion. My advice is to do not buy this scan unless you are desperate.

The Eldritch Wizardry is a decent or good scan but the original has the name Brent Johnson scrawled along the inside cover. My advice is to hold off buying this until RPGNow posts a new version or try and ignore the offending page.

One thing to remember is that they had to destroy the books to get these scans (Jim Butler discussed this when the first scans were done). Finding a pristine copy of the originals that the owner is willing to have destroyed can be difficult.

I haven't purchased the other PDFs as I acquired Blackmoor back when Dave Arnson gave it away for free (excellent scan of an excellent copy)

And still is.

For what it's worth, you can find this stuff at Paizo.com too.

Really? I went looking last night (when I saw DriveThruRPG's announcement) and didn't see the OD&D set.

 

[Kax Tuglebend]

One thing to remember is that they had to destroy the books to get these scans (Jim Butler discussed this when the first scans were done). Finding a pristine copy of the originals that the owner is willing to have destroyed can be difficult.

er.. call me simple, but why would they need to destroy the original? sure they would have trouble with hardbacks and flatbed scanners.. but surely you can still get hand-held scanners?

 

[bento]

I bought the ODD online yesterday and after reading through "Men and Magic" and "Monsters and Treasure", I can only say thank god for 3.0/3.5! It makes you really appreciate all the work that's been done in every edition to make this game easier to play.

D&D didn't make much sense until 3.0, and I think the lack of organization and incoherence of the ruleset that kept me from enjoying it much as a tween. I still have my 1st Ed DMG, and it bounces from topic to topic with no rhyme or reason. It was great to read on a ENW thread about six months ago that most other players never used the 1st edition RAW. It was mostly pick and choose the rules you saw fit.

This is no knock against Gary or Dave though. As the OP mentioned, the vision of the ODD books alone make them worth having. For instance, I never knew a gnoll was originally the crossing of a troll with a gnome! And the ODD rules were really all about going into a dungeon, exploring, killing and taking things. It reads more like a board game without a board, than the "roleplaying/storytelling" extravaganza that D&D is today.

Question - ODD mentions you need a copy of Chainmail to play (Vol. 1 pg 5 under Recommended Equipment). Is this really true?

I like the ODD art too! It reminds me very much of fanzines from the 1970s. You can see the homages to Barry Windsor-Smith in several of the pictures. I'd like to play in an ODD game, just to check it out. Too bad we never get much in the way of gaming conventions here in Dallas/Fort Worth!

Definetely worth the money, whether you buy it from RPGNow or Paizo.com!

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I recently purchased the Rules Cyclopedia and was extremely disappointed by the bad scans. There seems to be entire lines missing in much of the text, especially in regards to the campaign setting. Also, I never owned the print copy of the RC and was disappointed that they had removed some things such as the artifacts. I'm still happy that I have it since my Mentzer boxed sets are in very poor condition, but I'm wary of purchasing other scanned works.