Tell me about the 1E AD&D DMG

[BroccoliRage]

BroccoliRage: Thanks for your list. I got 1e Oriental Adventures a few weeks ago and really liked it, so I will keep those other books in mind for the future

Glad to help! I started playing AD&D when i was about 7 years old, back in 89. By all rights I should have been in time for 2e, but my stepdad, who introduced me to the game, played 1e with smatterings of 2e, so that's how i learned.

If you want some good module reccommendations, you could pick up X1 Isle of Dread, X2 Castle Amber, B2 Keep On The Borderlands, G1-2-3 Against The Giants, and the fantastic Hackmaster module Slaughterhouse Indigo.

Have fun with your old school gaming discoveries, it's a great way to play!
Jeremy

 

[cybertalus]

They did it because the distributors demanded it.

Forget dragons, deities, and 20th level wizards, that's power.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Oriental Adventures I can understand, since there wasn't a 2nd Edition replacement, and they released a 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium tie-in for it. But to keep reprinting the core rulebooks for a previous edition boggles me.

Because distributors were still ordering as the original edition was still selling briskly at the retail level.

 

[Gentlegamer]

There is evan a list of recommended fantasy reading material!

IMO, the recommended reading list in Moldvay's Basic D&D rulebook is better.

 

[Melan]

IMO, the recommended reading list in Moldvay's Basic D&D rulebook is better.

More extensive, probably. On the other hand, I believe "Appendix N" is a better selection - certainly better for capturing AD&D's "spirit".

 

[Lanefan]

1e still being distributed after 2e was in print indicates they might have been looking at running both at once, like they did with 0e and 1e for a while. Also, there was enough overlap that 2e material could easily be adapted for 1e, and vice versa.

3e was the first time there was a "hard" change, with all support for previous editions immediately dropped and minimal compatibility between old and new.

Lanefan

 

[Hellefire]

Toss me in the 'Cult' list.
Differences between the Efreeti and Green-robed guy?
Well, I much preferred the look of the Efreeti and the girl and what my pre-pubescent mind thought about the picture. I can still see the back cover clear as day in my mind too. Funny the things we remember from our childhood.

Aaron

Edit - um, yeah. my favorite single gaming book of all time.

 

[T. Foster]

More extensive, probably. On the other hand, I believe "Appendix N" is a better selection - certainly better for capturing AD&D's "spirit".

Indeed, the list in the Moldvay book feels more like an attempt at a comprehensive list of books in the fantasy genre (and note that a librarian at the Lake Geneva public library is thanked for helping to compile the list) whereas the DMG list is specifically of "books that helped shape this game," is self-consciously narrower in focus, and is in many ways just as notable for what isn't included (T. H. White, Mary Stewart, and any other "Arthuriana," C.S. Lewis, pretty much the entire sub-genre of serious/adult fantasy -- Cabel, Eddison, Peake, C.A. Smith, etc.) as for what is. Which list is "better" is immaterial because they serve different purposes (and each is suited to the product in which it is found) -- the Moldvay list is intended as an introductory survey of the wide world of fantasy literature, the DMG list is intended as a catalog of the specific books that inspired the specific flavor of AD&D.

 

[painandgreed]

Yeah, kinda strange. Maybe they weren't sure if 2E was going to take? (It sure didn't with me.)

They were also pretty interchangeable. Didn't have an extra 2E PHB to see if you leveled up? Just use 1E. Later you can always go back and correct anything you do later when no one else is using it. Although all my gaming groups (which was about 5 groups and 3 different sets of people in college) switched to 2E, I don't think anyone ever used anything besides 1E monster books. Many of the later 1E books were written to be compatable with both rule sets (or that's what they said on the cover anyway). Going from 1E to 2E was much like going from 3E to 3.5E.

 

[dcas]

Oriental Adventures I can understand, since there wasn't a 2nd Edition replacement, and they released a 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium tie-in for it. But to keep reprinting the core rulebooks for a previous edition boggles me.

Why not sell something that people want? The only costs incurred by T$R to reprint the 1e books would be the printing costs.