Which Basic?

Which Version of Basic D&D did your (primarly) play?


Remathilis

Legend
An Informal Poll: Which version of Basic did you play?

A Brief History:

The Holmes Edition (Blue Box) came out in 1977 and acted as a bridge between OD&D (and its at the time mess of supplements) to AD&D (which was still forthcoming). It only covered three levels, and had a number of interesting oddities: 5 alignments (LG, LE, CE, CG, N), spells known based on Int, monsters had DEX scores, etc.

The Moldvay/Cook edition (Magenta box) came out in 1981. The Basic set covered race-as-class, had 3 alignments (law, neutral, chaos) and capped (in the expert set) at 14th level (-ish, rules for going higher were mentioned). Often called B/X for the module codes it spawned.

The Mentzer edition came out in 1983 and was the backbone for "Basic" from that point forward (till 1989). It resembed M/C version, but with a more "heroic fantasy" motif and a higher level of play; it went to 36th level (and beyond) using the Companion, Masters, and Immortal rulesets (called BECMI together). It formed the backbone of the Rules Cyclopedia.

Mentzer was later revised into the "All New, Easy to Play" versions that came between 1991 and 1999. The first few (1991-1994) were meant to lead to the Rules Cyclopedia (edited by Aaron Allison); later box sets flowed into the AD&D 2e line. These latter box-set used different art and featured different adventures, but rules-wise were akin to BECMI.

More info Here: http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/rulebooks.html
 
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My first game was Holmes. Second game was AD&D 1E, played a bit (of the Basic sets) or a lot of every edition since. Still never played the one true game. Looking forward to playing 4E Essentials.

Yep. I've been playing for about 32 years. And no I'm not getting too old for this! I'm getting too old for everything else. :.-(
 
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<Edit>Although I originally got the Holmes set, I promptly lost the rulebook and just winged my games with B2 - Keep on the Borderlands<edit>.

Moldvay was where I really learned how to play. When I was first introduced to AD&D, I went back to playing basic for a while. Didn't pick up on AD&D again until I picked up Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures and the Survival guides.
 


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