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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Where was 4e headed before it was canned?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7645087" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>IME, and that dates back to when OD&D was the only RPG in existence, Basic filled a kind of gap for most people. I bought Holme's Basic because you literally could not get your hands on the LBBs! It gave us SOMETHING to actually work with, some rules. We then just photocopied bits out of the other books, and eventually got copies of them. </p><p></p><p>When AD&D came out, first the MM was just a D&D supplement, the 'AD&D' logo on the cover didn't mean a thing to us. This was just a collection of existing and new monsters with updated stats, treasure lists, etc. ready to use with existing stuff.</p><p></p><p>Even when the PHB came out we simply added it to our game, sort of like when 3.5 came out people converted some, but not all, characters from 3.0 rules. By then we understood that AD&D was a kind of a new version of the game, but it wasn't until Red Box appeared that anyone even thought of 'Basic' as a separate game and not just a starter set for the real game. It still WAS a starter set for a lot of people.</p><p></p><p>Once the DMG was out, I really never saw play using Basic|B/X|BECMI again. I know there were people who used those rules, but in ordinary "out in the world play" IME it was pretty close to 100% AD&D with a few things cribbed out of a BECMI book, or using one of the Basic modules (we generally just ignored the slight differences in numbers between the two games).</p><p></p><p>Gauging from my experience, the big sales of Basic, assuming they are real numbers, was gift boxes. Red Box sold like hotcakes as a very common gift for kids, just like many other toy fads and collectibles and whatnot have done over the years. Some percentage of those kids became avid RPG players and (again IME) the vast majority of those ended up playing in games which used the AD&D rules in some form. TBH, until the introduction of Expert in 1981, you really didn't have a choice, as Basic only got you to level 3. So from 1978 (PHB) to 1981 (Expert) there was no other choice beyond level 3 anyway.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7645087, member: 82106"] IME, and that dates back to when OD&D was the only RPG in existence, Basic filled a kind of gap for most people. I bought Holme's Basic because you literally could not get your hands on the LBBs! It gave us SOMETHING to actually work with, some rules. We then just photocopied bits out of the other books, and eventually got copies of them. When AD&D came out, first the MM was just a D&D supplement, the 'AD&D' logo on the cover didn't mean a thing to us. This was just a collection of existing and new monsters with updated stats, treasure lists, etc. ready to use with existing stuff. Even when the PHB came out we simply added it to our game, sort of like when 3.5 came out people converted some, but not all, characters from 3.0 rules. By then we understood that AD&D was a kind of a new version of the game, but it wasn't until Red Box appeared that anyone even thought of 'Basic' as a separate game and not just a starter set for the real game. It still WAS a starter set for a lot of people. Once the DMG was out, I really never saw play using Basic|B/X|BECMI again. I know there were people who used those rules, but in ordinary "out in the world play" IME it was pretty close to 100% AD&D with a few things cribbed out of a BECMI book, or using one of the Basic modules (we generally just ignored the slight differences in numbers between the two games). Gauging from my experience, the big sales of Basic, assuming they are real numbers, was gift boxes. Red Box sold like hotcakes as a very common gift for kids, just like many other toy fads and collectibles and whatnot have done over the years. Some percentage of those kids became avid RPG players and (again IME) the vast majority of those ended up playing in games which used the AD&D rules in some form. TBH, until the introduction of Expert in 1981, you really didn't have a choice, as Basic only got you to level 3. So from 1978 (PHB) to 1981 (Expert) there was no other choice beyond level 3 anyway. [/QUOTE]
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