Ranger REG
Explorer
It ran as a proper business enough to release all of the D&D boxed sets: from Basic to Immortal. That was before the release of 2nd edition.Eremite said:
Somehow in the 90's did TSR began to spiral downward.
Why did TSR release Basic D&D?
- Thread starter Sebastian Francis
- Start date
Somehow in the 90's did TSR began to spiral downward.
kengar
First Post
One theory I've heard is that AD&D was the more uniform/detailed game that Gygax wanted to develop (as mentioned above by Remathilis). Basic (+Expert, Companion, etc.) was a more "flexible" system and more closely modeled on OD&D. It was an alternate product line that kept the old schoolers from feeling like "their game" was being abandoned. (FWIW, I've also heard the thoery about the legal issues with Arneson).
Sebastian Francis
First Post
kengar said:
Hmmm...are you suggesting that the old school OD&D types tended to prefer the Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert game over the Advanced D&D game? Even though Gygax clearly designed the Advanced game for the die-hard gamer?
Not trying to be argumentative, just genuinely curious.
diaglo
Adventurer
Sebastian Francis said:
for the same reason WotC and now Hasbeen still calls d02: D&D... even tho it ain't.
product recognition.
basic had gary's blessings too.
it does as Glyfair mentions make many references to Advanced.
but that is 2edD&D and 3edD&D... written by Holmes.
when Cook/Moldvay and others started meddling with it... they wanted to make it a stand alone game.... and those versions definitely are. they are more different from Advanced and Original D&D in some aspects.
kengar
First Post
Sebastian Francis said:Hmmm...are you suggesting that the old school OD&D types tended to prefer the Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert game over the Advanced D&D game? Even though Gygax clearly designed the Advanced game for the die-hard gamer?
Not trying to be argumentative, just genuinely curious.
Certain elements of B/X rules are more similar to OD&D than AD&D. (Race as class, etc.) I'm not suggesting that they are the same ina ll respects. I also think that most OD&D-ers also had the philosophy that the game was something they could take and adjust to their tastes, whereas Gary saw AD&D as a more uniform and standardized set of rules.
Again, it's just one theory I've heard.
The history and reasoning behind the D&D (Basic, Expert, RC, etc.) vs. AD&D split, as I understand it:
In 1974 there was Dungeons & Dragons, 3 booklets in a box, written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. This game was very loose and freewheeling (though whether this was intentional or not is debatable -- certainly all the campaigns in Lake Geneva all remained pretty close to the baseline that later became AD&D). Over the next 2 years several supplements and magazine articles added many new rules and complications and keeping track of it all became unwieldy (plus the game was starting to become popular with a non-hobbyist audience who needed/wanted more explicit rules and instruction than were provided by the minimalist original rules).
Thus, in 1977, it was decided to do two revisions of the game. The first, Basic D&D (Gygax/Arneson, edited by J. Eric Holmes), would serve as an introductory set for the non-hobbyist audience. It would include a stripped down/simplified version of the rules (only covering character levels 1-3, leaving out many of the more complicated options and rules) along with a more straightforward and simpler to understand explanation of how to actually 'play' the game. The second was Advanced D&D (Gygax as sole author), a series of expensive hardbound volumes that collected all of the best material from D&D + supplements + magazines and integrated it into a single cohesive (at least comparatively) whole. Advanced D&D was D&D the way the folks in Lake Geneva played it and felt it was best played. But, realizing that not everyone wanted a single uniform ruleset and some people prefered the looser, more freeform style of original D&D, it was decided that the original rules would also be kept in print (though no longer supported with new supplements). Thus, in 1977-79 you could buy the D&D Basic Set (boxed set with basic rulebook, dice (later chits), and introductory module), the Advanced D&D hardbacks (Players Handbook, Monster Manual, Dungeon Masters Guide), or the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set (white-box with 3 booklets and 'Original Collector's Edition' blurb on the cover). One (presumably unintentional) point of confusion is that while the Basic rulebook consistently refers readers to Advanced D&D for coverage of more advanced/detailed rules (characters above 3rd level, additional character classes, etc.), since it was written/edited before Advanced D&D was actually finished (the Basic Set was released a couple months before the Monster Manual, about a year before the Players Handbook, and almost 2 years before the Dungeon Masters Guide) its rules are actually much closer to original D&D than they are to AD&D.
So far this is all pretty straightforward. Where things begin to get a little more confusing and complicated is in 1980 when TSR decided to finally take the original white-box D&D set out of print and to revise the Basic Set. For whatever reason (and this is where the rumors of Arneson's threatened legal action come in -- that something called D&D and crediting Arneson as co-author must remain in print), instead of making the Basic Set more compatible with the now-complete AD&D line (by, for instance, having the AC scale start at 10 instead of 9, giving clerics a spell at 1st level, giving fighters d10 hit dice, etc.) it was decided to keep the revised Basic Set's (Gygax/Arneson, edited by Tom Moldvay) rules essentially the same as the 1977 version's (and thus more compatible with original D&D than Advanced D&D). And instead of refering readers to Advanced D&D for higher level play, it would refer them to the newly-written Expert Set (Gygax/Arneson, edited by David Cook with Steve Marsh), a companion volume that consisted, essentially, of a revised version of the original D&D rules (there's almost nothing in the D&D Expert Set that doesn't come straight out of the original white-box rules). Thus, starting in 1981 TSR had two parallel in-print and actively supported D&D rulesets -- AD&D as the hobbyist game, the game for 'serious' players, and Basic/Expert D&D as the 'popular' mass-market game targeted at beginners and more casual players. The idea of a ruleset to appeal to those who prefered the more freeform style of original D&D had seemingly been dropped, as Expert Set D&D (at least IMO) didn't feel particularly more freeform than AD&D, just simpler (fewer character classes, fewer spells, magic items, and monsters, less detailed and complicated rules). As the modules and Dragon magazine articles of the era show, AD&D, not Basic/Expert D&D, was where most of the 'experimentation' in rules and style was taking place -- Dragon magazine was constantly presenting new classes and optional rules for AD&D, and modules like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (sci-fi), Ravenloft (gothic horror), and Dragonlance (epic romance) were stretching the 'AD&D genre' well beyond its original 'swords & sorcery' baseline, whereas Basic/Expert D&D received comparatively little attention and thus remained largely self-consistent (note that, for instance, while AD&D modules from 1982 on were all set in different not-necessarily-compatible 'worlds' -- some Greyhawk, some Krynn, some Ravenloft, and eventually Oriental Adventures, the Forgotten Realms, and more -- ALL of the D&D modules and supplements from the beginning to end of the product line were set within the same 'Known World' setting).
Starting in 1983-84 is where it gets REALLY crazy and I'm convinced TSR no longer knew what they were doing (non-coincidentally, this is the same time as the management changes occurred which almost drove the company into the ground in 1985 and which led directly to the second management change which DID drive the company into the ground in the 90s). With the revision of the Basic and Expert Sets in 1983 (Gygax/Arneson, edited by Frank Mentzer) and the expansion of the line with the Companion Set (1984, Mentzer), Master Set (1985, Mentzer), Immortals Set (1986, Mentzer), and the Gazetteer line of supplements (1987+, various authors) D&D was no longer merely the introductory version of the game it had been in 1977 or the mass-market-friendly version it had been in 1981, but was now a full-fledged rival product line to AD&D (which was essentially drifting by this point, having lost the guiding vision of its creator, Gary Gygax, who was forced out of TSR in 1986), every bit its equal in depth and complexity.
Things really reached a head with the release of 2nd edition AD&D in 1989 (author/editor: David 'Zeb' Cook), which attempted to both simplify and 'genericize' the AD&D game (i.e. moving it closer to what the D&D line had originally been) and the release of the ]D&D Rules Cyclopedia in 1991 (author/editor: Aaron Allston), which combined all of the advanced rules and options from the boxed sets + gazetteers into a single hardback book no longer intended as an introductory product for beginners (i.e. moving it closer to what AD&D had originally been). Both of these rulesets and product lines were thus serving the exact same purpose, chasing the same audience, and directly competing against each other, despite being published by the same company. It's no wonder both couldn't survive, and it's also no wonder considering AD&D's much higher profile within the company and marketplace (D&D was still stigmatized as the 'kiddie' mass-market version of the game, even though that was longer true, and hadn't been really since the release of the Companion Set in 1984), that AD&D 2E came out on top even though, in retrospect, many people have come to consider the Rules Cyclopedia to have been the superior ruleset.
In 1974 there was Dungeons & Dragons, 3 booklets in a box, written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. This game was very loose and freewheeling (though whether this was intentional or not is debatable -- certainly all the campaigns in Lake Geneva all remained pretty close to the baseline that later became AD&D). Over the next 2 years several supplements and magazine articles added many new rules and complications and keeping track of it all became unwieldy (plus the game was starting to become popular with a non-hobbyist audience who needed/wanted more explicit rules and instruction than were provided by the minimalist original rules).
Thus, in 1977, it was decided to do two revisions of the game. The first, Basic D&D (Gygax/Arneson, edited by J. Eric Holmes), would serve as an introductory set for the non-hobbyist audience. It would include a stripped down/simplified version of the rules (only covering character levels 1-3, leaving out many of the more complicated options and rules) along with a more straightforward and simpler to understand explanation of how to actually 'play' the game. The second was Advanced D&D (Gygax as sole author), a series of expensive hardbound volumes that collected all of the best material from D&D + supplements + magazines and integrated it into a single cohesive (at least comparatively) whole. Advanced D&D was D&D the way the folks in Lake Geneva played it and felt it was best played. But, realizing that not everyone wanted a single uniform ruleset and some people prefered the looser, more freeform style of original D&D, it was decided that the original rules would also be kept in print (though no longer supported with new supplements). Thus, in 1977-79 you could buy the D&D Basic Set (boxed set with basic rulebook, dice (later chits), and introductory module), the Advanced D&D hardbacks (Players Handbook, Monster Manual, Dungeon Masters Guide), or the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set (white-box with 3 booklets and 'Original Collector's Edition' blurb on the cover). One (presumably unintentional) point of confusion is that while the Basic rulebook consistently refers readers to Advanced D&D for coverage of more advanced/detailed rules (characters above 3rd level, additional character classes, etc.), since it was written/edited before Advanced D&D was actually finished (the Basic Set was released a couple months before the Monster Manual, about a year before the Players Handbook, and almost 2 years before the Dungeon Masters Guide) its rules are actually much closer to original D&D than they are to AD&D.
So far this is all pretty straightforward. Where things begin to get a little more confusing and complicated is in 1980 when TSR decided to finally take the original white-box D&D set out of print and to revise the Basic Set. For whatever reason (and this is where the rumors of Arneson's threatened legal action come in -- that something called D&D and crediting Arneson as co-author must remain in print), instead of making the Basic Set more compatible with the now-complete AD&D line (by, for instance, having the AC scale start at 10 instead of 9, giving clerics a spell at 1st level, giving fighters d10 hit dice, etc.) it was decided to keep the revised Basic Set's (Gygax/Arneson, edited by Tom Moldvay) rules essentially the same as the 1977 version's (and thus more compatible with original D&D than Advanced D&D). And instead of refering readers to Advanced D&D for higher level play, it would refer them to the newly-written Expert Set (Gygax/Arneson, edited by David Cook with Steve Marsh), a companion volume that consisted, essentially, of a revised version of the original D&D rules (there's almost nothing in the D&D Expert Set that doesn't come straight out of the original white-box rules). Thus, starting in 1981 TSR had two parallel in-print and actively supported D&D rulesets -- AD&D as the hobbyist game, the game for 'serious' players, and Basic/Expert D&D as the 'popular' mass-market game targeted at beginners and more casual players. The idea of a ruleset to appeal to those who prefered the more freeform style of original D&D had seemingly been dropped, as Expert Set D&D (at least IMO) didn't feel particularly more freeform than AD&D, just simpler (fewer character classes, fewer spells, magic items, and monsters, less detailed and complicated rules). As the modules and Dragon magazine articles of the era show, AD&D, not Basic/Expert D&D, was where most of the 'experimentation' in rules and style was taking place -- Dragon magazine was constantly presenting new classes and optional rules for AD&D, and modules like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (sci-fi), Ravenloft (gothic horror), and Dragonlance (epic romance) were stretching the 'AD&D genre' well beyond its original 'swords & sorcery' baseline, whereas Basic/Expert D&D received comparatively little attention and thus remained largely self-consistent (note that, for instance, while AD&D modules from 1982 on were all set in different not-necessarily-compatible 'worlds' -- some Greyhawk, some Krynn, some Ravenloft, and eventually Oriental Adventures, the Forgotten Realms, and more -- ALL of the D&D modules and supplements from the beginning to end of the product line were set within the same 'Known World' setting).
Starting in 1983-84 is where it gets REALLY crazy and I'm convinced TSR no longer knew what they were doing (non-coincidentally, this is the same time as the management changes occurred which almost drove the company into the ground in 1985 and which led directly to the second management change which DID drive the company into the ground in the 90s). With the revision of the Basic and Expert Sets in 1983 (Gygax/Arneson, edited by Frank Mentzer) and the expansion of the line with the Companion Set (1984, Mentzer), Master Set (1985, Mentzer), Immortals Set (1986, Mentzer), and the Gazetteer line of supplements (1987+, various authors) D&D was no longer merely the introductory version of the game it had been in 1977 or the mass-market-friendly version it had been in 1981, but was now a full-fledged rival product line to AD&D (which was essentially drifting by this point, having lost the guiding vision of its creator, Gary Gygax, who was forced out of TSR in 1986), every bit its equal in depth and complexity.
Things really reached a head with the release of 2nd edition AD&D in 1989 (author/editor: David 'Zeb' Cook), which attempted to both simplify and 'genericize' the AD&D game (i.e. moving it closer to what the D&D line had originally been) and the release of the ]D&D Rules Cyclopedia in 1991 (author/editor: Aaron Allston), which combined all of the advanced rules and options from the boxed sets + gazetteers into a single hardback book no longer intended as an introductory product for beginners (i.e. moving it closer to what AD&D had originally been). Both of these rulesets and product lines were thus serving the exact same purpose, chasing the same audience, and directly competing against each other, despite being published by the same company. It's no wonder both couldn't survive, and it's also no wonder considering AD&D's much higher profile within the company and marketplace (D&D was still stigmatized as the 'kiddie' mass-market version of the game, even though that was longer true, and hadn't been really since the release of the Companion Set in 1984), that AD&D 2E came out on top even though, in retrospect, many people have come to consider the Rules Cyclopedia to have been the superior ruleset.
Last edited:
rogueattorney
Adventurer
Linking the bifurcation of AD&D and D&D to TSR's demise is completely ahistorical. The various incarnations of the Basic box were consistently among TSR's best sellers from '77 through the end of the 80's. TSR didn't go belly up until 1998, five years after it stopped supporting D&D.
According to the Dragon magazine articles of the time, each version of the Basic set served a bit different purpose. The Holmes set was explicilty an introduction to both OD&D and AD&D. It's probably more analogous to the 3e Adventure Begins box or the new 3.5 Basic box, as it wasn't intended to stand alone as a seperate system. However, it's rules didn't exactly match either OD&D or AD&D, a side effect of being edited by an outside party and being produced about a year before the AD&D PHB hit the market. The Holmes set was seen as the first of a series of products to reorganize the D&D brand, AD&D being the next step. Gary Gygax assured fans of OD&D, though, that OD&D would continue to stay on the market and be supported, and it did, through about 1980.
According to a 1980-81 Dragon G.G. column, the popularity of the Basic box demanded further support, resulting in an Expert box to go with it. This project evolved into a re-editing of the Basic box to be more of a stand alone product, effectively replacing OD&D with B/X D&D. The 1981 boxes were designed as both an intro to role playing and as a more flexable and "tinker-able" alternative to AD&D.
The 1983 box set was explicitly for the beginning gamer. While the rules stayed pretty much the same as the 1981 set, its format was more of a how-to tutorial. It's with this edition of Basic and Expert and the '84-'86 Companion/Master/Immortals expansions that I've heard about the Dave Arneson connections. In a recent conversation with Frank Mentzer (the editor of the 83-86 BECMI boxes) on Dragonsfoot, he confirmed that some of the changes made in his edition of D&D had to do with keeping things different from AD&D to avoid Arneson related legal complications.
The thread: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7606&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
R.A.
According to the Dragon magazine articles of the time, each version of the Basic set served a bit different purpose. The Holmes set was explicilty an introduction to both OD&D and AD&D. It's probably more analogous to the 3e Adventure Begins box or the new 3.5 Basic box, as it wasn't intended to stand alone as a seperate system. However, it's rules didn't exactly match either OD&D or AD&D, a side effect of being edited by an outside party and being produced about a year before the AD&D PHB hit the market. The Holmes set was seen as the first of a series of products to reorganize the D&D brand, AD&D being the next step. Gary Gygax assured fans of OD&D, though, that OD&D would continue to stay on the market and be supported, and it did, through about 1980.
According to a 1980-81 Dragon G.G. column, the popularity of the Basic box demanded further support, resulting in an Expert box to go with it. This project evolved into a re-editing of the Basic box to be more of a stand alone product, effectively replacing OD&D with B/X D&D. The 1981 boxes were designed as both an intro to role playing and as a more flexable and "tinker-able" alternative to AD&D.
The 1983 box set was explicitly for the beginning gamer. While the rules stayed pretty much the same as the 1981 set, its format was more of a how-to tutorial. It's with this edition of Basic and Expert and the '84-'86 Companion/Master/Immortals expansions that I've heard about the Dave Arneson connections. In a recent conversation with Frank Mentzer (the editor of the 83-86 BECMI boxes) on Dragonsfoot, he confirmed that some of the changes made in his edition of D&D had to do with keeping things different from AD&D to avoid Arneson related legal complications.
The thread: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7606&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
R.A.
Ranger REG
Explorer
Rumor has it that Gygax was losing quality and creative control over AD&D development, so he pitched to TSR about a D&D game product easier to get into and easier to distribute. TSR hope that this product would allow customer-turned-gamer to graduate to AD&D.kengar said:
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
It's funny... at the time I wouldn't have touched "basic D&D" with a bargepole, but the more I hear of it now (and hear of the way it developed to support higher level play) the more I would like to obtain and read the rules!
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