thedungeondelver
Adventurer
BASIC DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and EXPERT D&D by Tom Moldvay (with Dave Cook) is a fine starting place. Very much rules lite and the Known World is a funky yet cool place to campaign if you don't already have something in mind.
The Best D&D edition for me.
- Thread starter Newbznsn
- Start date
BASIC DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and EXPERT D&D by Tom Moldvay (with Dave Cook) is a fine starting place. Very much rules lite and the Known World is a funky yet cool place to campaign if you don't already have something in mind.
I just bought the Moldvay set on ebay for the starter version for 10 bucks and in "excellent condition". i think i am going to start from there and then move into 3.5e or the other versions of classic D&D. also, is the Moldvay version bad? In the modules are there still ability checks for reasoning, sneakiness and all that fun stuff? It also, comes with the B2 adventure which i think someone said was good. Besides Dragonsfoot, where else can i get basic edition character sheets? Last, i only have 4 people playing (including myself), is that ok?
Thanks
Nick
Thanks
Nick
der_kluge
Adventurer
Listen to Psion. The man knows his games.
Personally, I like 3.5. Alternatively, you could check out Paizo's Pathfinder, which is described as 3.75 since Wizards of the Coast no longer support 3rd edition. I don't like 4th, and I agree that it's more focused on combat than 3rd edition is. Also, 4th took away a lot of the "superfluous" things that - for me, make 3rd edition fun.
OD&D - original D&D, 1974. Forget this one. It's basically unavailable, unless you want to scour eBay and pay upwards of $100 for it.
Basic D&D - this one is doable, but you'll have to get them all off eBay. Even then the boxed sets might be a little pricey, and you have to get multiples of them as you gain in level. There are a number of varieties of this game, and even I can't keep them all straight. I'm most familiar with the "red box" basic set. There are others. If you want to go this route, you could try locating the "Rules Cyclopedia" - it contains everything the boxed sets had.
1st edition - books are available relatively easily on eBay, and probably relatively cheaply. 1st edition isn't a bad set, but the rules are kind of wonky in places. Also, most GMs who ran 1st edition had tons of house rules to "repair" a lot of the weirdness in the game. Certain things that are in the rules were almost universally never accepted by the masses to the point that official rules often confuse and bewilder veteran players of the game. I'd suggest you find a grognard to teach you these rules if you're interested in them. 1st edition does play very loose, which sounds kind of what you're looking for. If you ever seen the D&D cartoon, it is based on this edition.
2nd edition - actually not terribly different from 1st. The bonus with 2nd edition is that there are some great campaign settings available for it like Planescape (pricey, hard to find) and Ravenloft or Dark Sun. That's the real appeal to 2nd edition. The rules set isn't too bad, though some of the rules are really weird (wrestling rules, I'm looking at you). There's tons of support material for this edition, and you could probably acquire the books on eBay very cheaply. I played this edition personally for over 10 years and had a great time with it.
3.x - this is currently my favorite system, and fixes a lot of the weird problems in 2nd edition, while at the same time expanding on what you can do in combat with rules for grappling, disarming, and bull rushing people. While these rules aren't perfect, they are at least there, which is more than what 2nd edition had. 3rd edition also simplifies the XP system, and removes racial level limits, and makes ability scores more logical. There's TONS of support material for it since 3rd party publishers could write products for this system, which is a huge bonus.
4th edition - to me, it's a completely different game than 3rd, and all previous editions. Sure, fighters and wizards are still there, but mechanically, the game is built around a completely different kind of engine - one that is tuned for combat. Some other drawbacks to this system are that it would be the most expensive since it's brand new, and there's very little in the way of support material for it, since it's only been out this year, and most 3rd party publishers won't touch it with a 10' pole.
Bravo! Moldvay's version is one of the hallmarks of the D&D family. All the ability checks that you stated depends on you to implement them as the DM. I too am running that version and have 3 players and tons of retainers. Hehe. Don't forget to get the Cook's Expert and you have a complete game.
When your players have the hang of D&D and rpgs, then branch out to other systems.
PS: The best char sheets are hand written on exercise books. Hehe
Darrin Drader
Explorer
Right now I have a Pathfinder game going and my group is enjoying it quite a lot. Pathfinder is essentially the promise of 3.5 taken to the next logical improvement.
But I've also been in the middle of some lengthy writing for a 3.5 adventure, and I've been longing for the good old days of a system so simple you can wing it. I recently decided to check out Castles and Crusades PDFs, liked what I saw, and had them printed out. What I like about it is that the core mechanic is elegant, and with a relatively small amount of work, you can use it with any adventure published for any edition of D&D.
That said, I'm also checking out Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC. There's an ancient Earth campaign that I mentioned in another thread that I'm jonesing to run under one of these retro-clone systems, and I'm still deciding which route to go with it. OSRIC 2.0 is supposed to be out before the end of the month, and I might go that route instead. I still haven't made up my mind.
In either case, I really like what I'm seeing lately in the way of new games. There are a lot of options on the market right now which are trying to match every gamer with the right system for their prefered style of play. Forin instance, I like the way that the True20 rules set works for future based games, so that's why I picked it for my scifi setting, Reign of Discordia. A lot of people are just wanting a system that plays fast and easy, where they can pick up the books, have characters made in 15 minutes, and wing the adventure.
That's where the retro-clones come in. I have to be completely honest here too. While I loved all the character options of 3.5, we sure used to have a lot of fun with the 1st and 2nd edition rules. If you're wanting to run a dungeon crawl, you can crawl through a lot more in a session under the old rules than the newish ones. Skills weren't an issue either, but you can forget min-maxing, or using advanced strategy in combat. The emphasis really was entirely different in the early days of the game as was the experience.
So really, the only advice that I have for you is to try out a number of different options to see which one clicks with you the best. Don't be afraid of the retro-clones, though, because there is some serious fun to be had under the old school rules.
But I've also been in the middle of some lengthy writing for a 3.5 adventure, and I've been longing for the good old days of a system so simple you can wing it. I recently decided to check out Castles and Crusades PDFs, liked what I saw, and had them printed out. What I like about it is that the core mechanic is elegant, and with a relatively small amount of work, you can use it with any adventure published for any edition of D&D.
That said, I'm also checking out Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC. There's an ancient Earth campaign that I mentioned in another thread that I'm jonesing to run under one of these retro-clone systems, and I'm still deciding which route to go with it. OSRIC 2.0 is supposed to be out before the end of the month, and I might go that route instead. I still haven't made up my mind.
In either case, I really like what I'm seeing lately in the way of new games. There are a lot of options on the market right now which are trying to match every gamer with the right system for their prefered style of play. Forin instance, I like the way that the True20 rules set works for future based games, so that's why I picked it for my scifi setting, Reign of Discordia. A lot of people are just wanting a system that plays fast and easy, where they can pick up the books, have characters made in 15 minutes, and wing the adventure.
That's where the retro-clones come in. I have to be completely honest here too. While I loved all the character options of 3.5, we sure used to have a lot of fun with the 1st and 2nd edition rules. If you're wanting to run a dungeon crawl, you can crawl through a lot more in a session under the old rules than the newish ones. Skills weren't an issue either, but you can forget min-maxing, or using advanced strategy in combat. The emphasis really was entirely different in the early days of the game as was the experience.
So really, the only advice that I have for you is to try out a number of different options to see which one clicks with you the best. Don't be afraid of the retro-clones, though, because there is some serious fun to be had under the old school rules.
Congratulations!
To my mind Moldvay Basic D&D is the best RPG ever written - Mentzer Basic is a bit more accessible for brand new players, but Moldvay is better for referencing in-play. And I say this as someone who only discovered it a few years ago, this isn't nostalgia talking.d20 Ability checks are an optional rule in Moldvay; there are d6 checks for some stuff (breaking down doors, hearing noise, finding secret doors), the general approach for most stuff is that as GM you look at the stat and go from there - NPCs will be friendly to the CHA 16 guy, the STR 16 guy can lift the big boulder, etc.
B2 is good and very flexible how you approach it - roleplay and intrigue at the Keep, sneaking and hacking in the Caves of Chaos. It benefits from fleshing out with your own ideas, eg the NPCs are not named; the Church of Evil Chaos and the Lawful Realm of Man are undefined.
3 players + GM is fine; you might want to have an NPC adventurer with the PCs and allow them to hire mercenaries. Also, you might want to do 1 of these 2:
1. Allow multiple PCs per player. I don't really recommend this for new players.
2. Make the PCs a bit tougher, here are my house rules:
a) Roll attributes on best 3 of 4 six sided dice, and let player swap any 2 around.
b) Give out bonus hit points at 1st level - I use Fighters & Dwarves +10, Clerics, Thieves, Elves and Halflings +8, Magic-Users +6.
c) Instead of death at 0 hp, allow PCs to be unconscious at 0, dead at -10 hp. Unconscious PCs have to be taken back to town and allowed to heal up normally before they can fight & adventure again.
BTW Labyrinth Lord can be used as an expansion to Moldvay Basic to take it to 20th+ level, but you'll probably want to get the Marsh/Cook Expert D&D set, which covers 4th-14th level and then maybe use LL for 15th+ if you go that high.
Another page of mine that could probably use some updating: Robert’s illustrated quick-reference to the editions of D&D and what I tend to call them
When looking at that chart, technically “Basic” would refer to Holmes and the B in B/X or BECMI. Often, however, it is used as a synonym for what many of us now call “classic”. Also, “OD&D” is sometimes used in the same way as well.
Keefe the Thief
Hero
AFAIK only 4e has rituals as a core idea in the game. There are some ritual-like things in older edition, but nothing as developed as in 4e.
I´d like to recommend 4e simply because you are a new DM and because it has an awesome DMG. Easily the best for a starting DM, explaining lots of stuff. So, go for 4e.
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