Why OD&D Is Still Relevant

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Since it was probably all over your feeds already (and has been mentioned on the front page here), I won’t go into a great deal of detail except to say that the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons is out in PDF on all of the OneBookshelf related-sites. A big part of the problem with having role-playing gaming conversation online (and in person as well) is that a lot of the viewpoints are based off of what people have read or heard other people say about games, rather than experience them first hand. Many times this is because the material in question is long out of print, and the people wanting to talk about couldn’t experience them first hand. As more older material comes back into print (or made available in PDF form) I would like to think that it will make having honest conversations easier. I know that is likely a naïve idea.

Original (or Old, depending on how you like to fill in the “O”) Dungeons & Dragons is the transition from earlier wargames to what would eventually become role-playing games. I like to think of this incarnation as being more like “proto” D&D, mostly because while there are a lot of the elements that gamers without familiarity with the older D&D experience would recognize as being D&D, still not all of the pieces are in place. I think the things that aren’t there will be more likely to trip people up.

Let’s talk a little about what the proto D&D isn’t, or doesn’t have, for those who haven’t experienced it. First off, everything from weapons to hit dice are on a d6 “scale.” That means that weapons tend to look pretty much alike, as do the hit points of characters. Fighters (called “Fighting-Men” at this point after Edgar Rice Burroughs references) get slightly more hit dice than Magic-Users, but Clerics are close behind. A party without a Fighter can hang on with a Cleric or two (which is how games I’ve played have worked out).

The other “missing” component is the Thief class. No Thieves ‘til Greyhawk.

Most of the other elements are in place, and “race as class” isn’t yet on the table. There is a flaw, though, in that a couple of special abilities for elves and dwarves refer to the Chainmail rules.

The issues of hit dice and a lack of Thieves are my biggest issue with the proto D&D. The Thieves are a big deal, because between Leiber and Howard, it doesn’t feel like fantasy to me without a Thief. It also seems a weird omission for dungeon-based adventuring.

In play, the sameness of hit dice and weapons damage can lead to a generic quality for things, particularly weapons. It can also create a weird quality of the characters all having roughly the same “toughness” to them, regardless of class. Randomness is a great equalizer in the proto D&D, and your first level Fighter can have fewer hit points than the Magic-User. While it might just appear happenchance on the surface, I think that the random quality is what passed for “game balance” in these earliest versions of the game.

Now, I haven’t played proto D&D directly in a couple of decades, but over the last few years our group has played a lot of Swords & Wizardry, starting out using the Whitebox rules, and then eventually adding more detail from Core and Complete as we went along in our games. Whitebox certainly was more Magic-User user friendly.

Now, Greyhawk, the first supplement to OD&D, “fixed” these “problems.” This was also the point at which Magic-Users were forever consigned to having d4 hit dice (I personally use a d6 for them in my “old school” games), which can be good or bad depending on your view of things. I get that the reasoning was probably “Hey, they get spells…let’s not go crazy with the Magic-User” but it isn’t a line of reasoning that I agree with. But the nice thing about the game is that it is flexible enough to take a few smacks from house rules, with only minimal wobbling on the part of the system.

And this boils things down as to why I like playing these older editions of the game. For some, playing OD&D or “old school” games like Swords & Wizardry get written off as being nostalgia-driven. Despite having gamed since 1979, I am one of the least nostalgic gamers that you are probably ever going to encounter. Honestly, I killed off enough brain cells in college that I couldn’t remember how I gamed as a kid if I even wanted to do so. But, and this is probably evident in my writing about games, I have reached a point in my life, and my gaming, where I want simpler approaches to things in my gaming. That’s where “old school” games come into play for me.

A couple of years ago, when a long-time friend of mine asked me to introduce her to tabletop RPGs (after years of playing WoW) via Google Hangouts, I started a search for fantasy games that would have a similar enough of an experience that she would be able to recognize it from her experience, while being a simpler experience and getting away from the grid and miniatures approach (that I am not a fan of anyway). I scoured the internet, looking for things that were free downloads (didn’t want her to buy a bunch of stuff and turn out to hate tabletop) and looked over games like Basic Fantasy and Swords & Wizardry. I don’t remember the exact reasoning, maybe because the Whitebox rules were so simple, but that was what we went with. We used a variant Thief class to round out our game.

Anyway, this is a digression but I wanted to dig in a little and show that what I am talking about is play-based. Plus, the flexibility of the game is a huge consideration. Making up new classes is pretty easy, mostly because there aren’t as many mechanics to complicate matters. Expansion for an OD&D game (without Greyhawk being out in PDF at the time of publication) is really easy with all of the resources that exist for games like Swords & Wizardry Whitebox (which, if I haven’t explained well enough is based off of just the rules from the initial OD&D three booklets) to take your OD&D games in all sorts of directions. Barrel Rider Games does a lot of material for Whitebox that can easily be slotted into OD&D as well.

Even if your plan isn’t to play OD&D as-is, there is still a great foundation onto which you can build a fun class and level based fantasy game that does better suit the needs that you might have in a game. Crafting new spells and new monsters is pretty easy. I made about five new monsters before our Tuesday game in just a couple of hours. That time was going from “I have a cool name” to “I have a fully statted out creature.” If you want to check out something that is fairly close to OD&D (but is free), there is Matt Finch’s Swords & Wizardry. It is a pretty great game in its own rights, and our group has gotten years of enjoyment out of playing the game. I really hope that new edition Swords & Wizardry Kickstarter happens.

 

[pemerton]

Balance is a myth.

There are always those abilities that aren't really quantifiable, however. Intelligence. Wisdom. Knowledge. Artistic ability. Measuring the amount of damage that one thing does and comparing it to the damage that another thing does is quantifiable, but it ultimately is a small part of things to only look at combat.

<snip>

Balance is a pointless pursuit, particularly when it isn't actually isn't actually what people are looking for when they say "balance." More often they mean "spotlight time" which is even more vague.

A part of the reason for the randomness in early editions, and particularly in something like OD&D is to give a somewhat even footing to characters.

If "balance" is a myth, than what does "even footing" refer to? If it's really mythical then it doesn't become less mythical by using slightly different wording.

I also don't understand why you equate "balance" with combat.

Personally, I think that mechanical effectiveness is a real thing in RPGs, and that it is something that design can address. Just to give a couple of examples: many players find that low-level thieves in classic D&D struggle with mechanical effectiveness (and 2nd ed AD&D recognised this and addressed it by changing the rules for determining thief skill percentages); and many players find that high-level fighters in 3E/PF can struggle with mechanical effectiveness in comparison to spellcasters.

Whether it's good or bad for the game that some character builds tend to be more mechanically effective than others is of course a different question. The MU class entry in the AD&D PHB, for instance, both (i) explains how high-level MUs are the most mechanically effective characters in the game, and then (ii) explains that this is counterbalanced by their comparative lack of mechanical effectiveness at low levels. That's a design that tends to make sense in a play environment where PC levels have to be "earned" through actual play, and where it is realistic to expect PCs to be played enough to rise to high levels. But other play contexts (eg starting PCs well above 1st level, so that the weak levels don't actually have to be played through; or playing only at low levels, so that the rewards for that initial suffering are never gained) can mean that that particular design choice doesn't serve the purpose for which it was intended.

It's no surprise that what counts as good or bad design is relative to certain contexts and purposes of play. But that doesn't mean that the idea that PCs have a degree of mechanical effectiveness, which admits of comparison, is a myth.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Tim Kask and I (Frank Mentzer) run OD&D games at many conventions. Just sign up and play. However, mine is straightforward OD&D, while Tim's the radical progressive, using all the Supplements.

Thanks very much for the basic red box set! You probably get that a lot, but so many of us came into the hobby through that window to the imagination that its influence is never going away.

 

[Chimpy]

I agree that balance can never be achieved- but it can be strived for. For some people it's not a problem but for others it is. So logically if the game is designed with balance in mind, then it's going to make more people happy and enjoy the product more. For the people who don't care about balance, they aren't going to care one way or the other.

Yes it is subjective. What do we mean by balance? I guess we mean making sure that each option or choice is useful and not outshined by a similar option. Also things like trying to ensure that monsters of a certain rated difficulty are actually approximately the same hardness in practice. These kind of things often need quite a lot of playtesting.

If players tend to all favour one type of character or certain spells or something like that, then that would indicate the balance is off.

 

[rabindranath72]

Never really cared for OD&D, but I started with Frank's Red Box, and subsequent boxed sets, up to the inimitable Immortal Set, which still see play at my table. I see "Classic" D&D as the "natural evolution" of OD&D, it just hits the right "mix" of elements I like in a game. When I am in the mood for something more "complex", then it's 13th Age; the game is just wonderful, and it shows that you can have interesting game play without being bogged down in pointless mechanics.
EDIT: I even like 3.0 (core books only, though!)

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I'm not sure why [MENTION=2885]diaglo[/MENTION] isn't here to make his catchphrase, but I'll paraphrase for him despite preferring BECMI myself: "ODD is the only one true game, and all others are just pale imitations of the real thing.."

 

[The Human Target]

Bless it for starting things off.

I could cobble together a far better game with the same design goals on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

We all could.

 

[MichaelSandar]

I love OD&D - though usually with the supplements. It's such a great, bare-bones game. Is it elegant, and perfectly laid out? No. But everything you need to make the game your own is there. Even in the beginning there were house rules, variants, and errata - in large part through things like the Judges Guild. At home games, people made up what rules they wanted and needed - the base was an inspiring fount of creativity. That's what makes it so good.

That it doesn't hold up well in todays standards is irrelevant because of it's basic flexibility. Sure, it may be a Model T... but it's a T with room to hook up an engine from '69 GTO, the tires of a dragster, and just for funsies, that spoiler you've always wanted.

 

[robconley]

Surely any character, in any setting, in any RPG system can try any action? That's what RPGs are about. It's just a case of knowing what kind of roll to make and how hard the check is?

The problem is that most people then and now tend to treat RPGs more as a game where the rules are hard and fast. So what is not in the rules is forbidden. Now obviously this contradicts the central premise of RPGs where the point is to be a character interacting with an imagined setting. So this tension plays out in different ways depending on the people and the game. In my experience this mostly show up in what the character has to make rolls for.

Now the thing is in the gaming culture of the upper midwest this the above wasn't a big part of it. There were a couple of factors going on that caused this but the two most important things to remember they had few published sources for rules, and for the most part they were inserted in accuracy in fighting out the miniature wargame battles.

My impression from reading Playing at the World, Hawk & Moor, and antedotes, this lead to the assumption that unless it was specifically said or wrote otherwise, the default is whatever worked in the real world. When looking at the rules they actually wrote they seem incomplete but when you look at how they played, the gamers brought in all the stuff they read. Most of them just didn't write it down as pretty much everybody interested got to read the same books.

OD&D was written in the context of that gaming culture. It doesn't say explicitly that any character can pick locks or find traps because it was just assumed. Gygax though it would be a mildly popular game among the wargamers he knew. But it became more than and spread to corners of the country and world that did not share the same assumptions as the wargamers of the early 70s.

The best way to approach OD&D is to start with the idea that the game is about playing a character interacting with a imagined setting. That the rules are just the one of the tools a referee can use to decide whether a given action succeeds or not. That the focus of D&D is not to play the game with precise rules, like chess or go, but to play a campaign where the player play characters interacting with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

 

[robconley]

Personally, I think that mechanical effectiveness is a real thing in RPGs, and that it is something that design can address.

The point of RPGs in my view are to play a character interacting with a setting in an imagined setting with the actions adjudicated by a human referee. The rules should reflect how the setting works. Now different settings can be variations of a given genre or sub-genre (like Swords & Sorcery, or Weird Fantasy). In which case a set of rules reflecting the assumptions of that genre would be a useful tool.

However a focus on mechanical effectiveness will result in the game being some other thing as it will cease to reflect the original balance of the setting or genre. Plus some of the balance between character types in a given setting are not easily defined by rules mechanics. They work best by a simple explanation as if it was real place being describe.

For example in my own Majestic Wilderlands, Elves are mechanically superior to most other races. However for various reason that makes sense my setting, human civilizations the dominant cultures. The result that elven characters in my campaigns often feel like a fish out of water when trying to interact with the bulk of my setting. Which is fine for some classes but not for others.

The assumption that is not really clear in OD&D is that the referee will tailor his rulings to suit the campaign. Thus making certain easier or harder for various types of characters depending on the specific setting being run. It cold very well be in a OD&D campaign two fighter with equal dexterity and equal levels may not have the same chance of success when it come to picking a lock. Because the player of the first fighter worked out with the referee that his fighter is a gentlemen thief of high birth, while the other players worked out that his fighter is a barroom brawler type known for his skill in pit fighting.

 

[Kalex the Omen]

And by contrast, I run OD&D games for folks who'd LIKE to try D&D... but don't want to make the major commitment in time and money just to find out whether they'd like it.

Less rules means faster combats, too. If you prefer a full Sim, nice and slow for precision, then great. But in a 4-hour convention slot I can run 4 major melees plus 4-6 plot-advancing scenes and still have time for everybody to strut their roleplaying ability. OD&D is streamlined, not dumbed-down.

If you like rules for everything, fine. I don't play freeform boardgames; we use all the rules. If I play PF or 3.5 we use all the rules (well, most of 'em). Any style is valid if it works for you and your group.

I think this is a very important point for everyone to understand Frank. Thanks for posting it!

Different games are just different toolboxes. You use the one that works best for the job you want to get done. My games are exploration heavy. Combat, though important, isn't the main objective. I find that First Edition AD&D is the toolbox I need to run the game that I want to run. If I want a game focused on very detailed, precise combat I might use 3e/3.5 or 4e. AD&D, OD&D, B/X or BECMI wouldn't do for that type of game.

I think it would be great if everyone could keep these truths in mind when discussing editions. From a purely emotional standpoint everyone is going to think the edition they play is the best, but if you step back and try to be objective you will see that every edition does something well and other things not-so-well. Choose your tools based on needs, not emotion or because it is bright and shiny new.