D&D General Veteran fans - did you think of Basic D&D and AD&D as completely different games?

[JEB]

I've been randomly pulling PDFs out of my DriveThruRPG/DM Guild collection to read lately, and just finished 1982's Polyhedron #8. (Which is no longer on DM Guild, alas - I suspect their Polyhedron issues were pulled due to some unforeseen rights issues.)

In Frank Mentzer's Q&A column "Dispel Confusion", he makes the following comment, after an answer on rolling ability scores in D&D vs. AD&D:

Don't mix the game systems. They are different games.

Presumably this was the official TSR line (though I'd be interested to hear if there were contradictory statements). But is this what veteran players really assumed back in the day? A wall between Basic D&D and AD&D, with nothing meant to be used interchangeably?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Modules are absolutely used interchangeably. PCs? Not so much. While somewhat compatible, you can run into certain issues by mix mashing BX with 1e PCs. Things like spells to the cost of equipment can vary widely. For example, a basic fighter has 1d8 hp with different str and con mods than a 1e, and will probably start with plate and shield and 1e will not.

Both are DnD though. Same game, just minor differences.

Speaking for myself, we used 1e and BX adventures all the time with each other. But we never had a mix of PCs.

 

[dave2008]

I've been randomly pulling PDFs out of my DriveThruRPG/DM Guild collection to read lately, and just finished 1982's Polyhedron #8. (Which is no longer on DM Guild, alas - I suspect their Polyhedron issues were pulled due to some unforeseen rights issues.)

In Frank Mentzer's Q&A column "Dispel Confusion", he makes the following comment, after an answer on rolling ability scores in D&D vs. AD&D:


Presumably this was the official TSR line (though I'd be interested to hear if there were contradictory statements). But is this what veteran players really assumed back in the day? A wall between Basic D&D and AD&D, with nothing meant to be used interchangeably?

We used both sets of rules as one game. We had the BECMI boxed sets and supplemented it with the 1e PHB, DMG, and MM1 & 2

EDIT: I also want to point out that we didn't realize we mixing to different games. We just thought it was all Dungeons & Dragons!

 

[Audiomancer]

We freely mixed B/X and AD&D material. We worked out pretty quickly that the two rules systems had some differences, but they’re similar enough that we could make judgment calls where they conflict. I know that we ran some B and X modules with AD&D characters, and it worked out fine. Sometimes we found B/X spell descriptions to be more straightforward than their AD&D equivalents. I don’t remember anyone ever wanting to play a B/X elf or dwarf in an AD&D module, but if it came up, we could have figured out a way to make it work.

 

[TerraDave]

Of course people mixed them: they used B/X rules when the AD&D rules were too confusing.

I do see them as different games. More different then say 3e vs 3.5 and a little more different then 1e vs 2e.

There is also some asymmetry. Not that hard to use BX stuff in an AD&D game, but harder to use say an AD&D adventure in a B/X game.

 

[Kimberly Burgess]

I started with the Basic and Expert sets along with the Wilderness Survival Guide, and freely mixed and matched adventures, Gazetteers, and modules. Even mixed in the old Greyhawk boxed set and my own creations. I think I still prefer the Rules Cyclopedia/Immortals/Mystara/BECMI setting over modern rulesets.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I toed that official line to a tee back in the day. Never mixed D&D with AD&D, because the D&D books said not to (and the AD&D books generally never acknowledged D&D's existence—because of course they didn't, TSR was in the business of pushing AD&D, and they only kept D&D in print because they had to).

 

[Tonguez]

yes they are entiely different games and feel different too

but modules arent rules and I thought 75% of the game was hacking the Frankenstein rules system that you like

 

[Lyxen]

yes they are entiely different games and feel different too

Entirely different, really ? Honestly, in particular at low level, the feeling was exactly the same, and for me the differences were way more about the settings than about the rules. The extremely high compatibility of the modules is proof of this.

Yes, the characters were a bit different, and do develop differently, but at low level they were almost interchangeable.

 

[teitan]

Yes, different enough that I only bought modules for basic because they were compatible but the rules like classes and stuff were not. I did prefer Basics alignment system though.