Why people like to play OD&D (1974)

[Dragonbait]

WARNING: Please be constructive. No tongue-in-cheek ... Thank you.

Damn. There goes what I would have originally posted. Something serious, huh..?

I started with the red box set (long after AD&D was out, but before 2nd edition came out) and yes, the rules were very easy to learn. Also, the box set idea, for me, made it seem like I was really progressing in something. "All right, I beat the first box set, now I can more on to the next set!"

 

[Nac_Mac_Feegle]

Are we classing OD&D as the red box and the boxes that preceded it?

I first stated RPing when I was 11 (1983) on red box D&D, we moved onto 1st edition, then 2nd edition, and now of course, were on 3.x

I didnt play it long enough to comment, and I was very young, but I do rememebr it being a more fluid game, as someone has pointed out, more rules means more restrictions and more looking up. In fact just look at how its quite hard to ask a question in the rules forum just for opinions, without someone stating "RAW says this, so end of dicsussion". RAW seems to be to restrictive in what is essentially make believe.

Oh, and if OD&D isnt the red box, please tell this n00b what it is, because I dont actually know

Feegle Out

 

[cildarith]

This is OD&D. Anything later than that is... must resist diaglo's influence... not under consideration in this thread. (I hope.)

 

[Nac_Mac_Feegle]

WOW, that is OLD. I honestly thought red box was ther first ever D&D, now I know better.

Does this make Diaglo the first carbon dated RPGer?

Feegle Out

 

[Plane Sailing]

This is OD&D. Anything later than that is... must resist diaglo's influence... not under consideration in this thread. (I hope.)

Interesting. I started playing with White Box, 4th printing then! (although we had Greyhawk included from the very beginning too. Thief class, different HD sizes and 7th-9th level wizard spells yeah baby!

What I particularly liked about the game was that there was no interconnection between the rules, which made it incredibly easy to add new rules for new situations. There may not have been an elegant system tying everything together, but that wasn't necessary for it to work and the flexibility made the basic principle (go down dungeons and bash things) sheer simplicity.

I also found that more depended upon the players description of what they wanted to do/where they wanted to look (there were no skills to gather things like searching or stuff, so it was up to your wit and intelligence to work out what was present. I think that probably gave me a deeper sense of immersion in the game world than I tend to find nowadays.

The recollection almost makes me want to break out the old game and have a go

 

[Insight]

OK that clarifies things a bit for me. In that case, I've seen and read a bit of OD&D, but not played it. I'll watch this discussion for more thoughts/opinions of those who have actually played it.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I like classic D&D because it strikes an excellent balance between rules and freedom. That is, you have enough rules to have a structured game, but not so many that you're restricted or boxed in. For a given situation, you're much more likely to be relying on DM and player judgment on what you can do and how it's resolved, rather than relying on the rulebooks and lists of stuff on your character sheet. I find that empowering as a DM (I get to use my judgment a lot more), and think it encourages players to think "in game" (i.e. immersion, like Plane Sailing mentioned), rather than about their character sheets.

Lastly, playing classic D&D has a very different feel from playing 3E D&D. They're two different games, IMO.

A lot of my opinions about classic D&D are shared by this gentleman, especially the "I used to think..." stuff.

As a clarification, when I say "classic D&D" I'm being pretty broad, including the original three book edition (OD&D), the Holmes basic set (i.e. "blue book" edition), the Moldvay/Cook basic and expert sets (B/X), and the Mentzer BECMI/RC (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortals/Rules Cyclopedia) editions. (I started in 1978 with the Holmes basic set.)

 

[tvknight415]

I started playing with the 81 Baic/Expert set (interestingly enough, using those two rulebooks in the AD&D S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks). I've never looked inside the "original" D&D (except at a download of the blackmoor supplement I saw on a website somewhere). But, here are my thoughts (I don't know if it will have a point, I may just ramble)...

D&D was a nice simple game, which left a lot to the imagination. Dwarves were warriors, elves were magical, and humans could be whatever they wanted to be. The Rules Cyclopedia was a great compilation and a one-book gamers dream (and finally gave D&D a paladin).

AD&D is what I think of when someone mentions "D&D". It has paladins (the one class I'm most partial to playing) rangers, and barbarians, had the separate race/class with limits, and law/chaos and good/evil alignments. Limited race/class combos kept the flavor of the races, and it was nice to hammer down characters. I first discovered AD&D because of the Monster Manual. The biggest decision in character creation was whether to multi-class.

2nd Edition AD&D is what I think of as the best conceived version of D&D. It incorporated the flavor of AD&D1, incuded the proficiencies (which I liked), and made clerical spell availability dependent on which diety you worshipped (why would Vecna care about healing someone?). Wizards could specialize and be different. I missed the barbarian and cavalier, although the kits gave a nice flavor (but started to get munchkin/silly as more Complete whatever books came out, and they started to become too many, but not as bad as 3E).

D&D3.x certainly gave us the most coherent rules system where things worked together. However, in doing so, the game lost a lot of the flavor of previous editions (dwarf wizards??? I thought dwarves were inherently magic resistant. How the you-know-what can they channel magic if they're resistant?). It was nice to have options to customize your character. Then, the expansion books began.. and continued.. and continued.. and continued.. and.. well, you get the idea. Our group is starting a new campaign, and we have like 25 different books to pull races, classes, and feats out of. Overload! Overload!

So, what do I think of original D&D? I miss the simple days. Back then, it was about creating a character in 20 minutes, and getting on to the adventure, rather than spending hours just trying to pick a class combination to build.

To quote Archie and Edith, "Those were the days!"

Eric

 

[Odhanan]

Robert Fisher's website is shock full of interesting remarks. It makes for a (series of) good read(s). The I used to think... article points out very simple and straightforward arguments. I'm not agreeing with everything (this part made me raise an eyebrow: "A game of coöperation between players is often better when each player has more limited options. PCs created by the rules can be just as much fun (if not more fun) to play than my favorite book/movie character or munchkin idea."), but I think his remarks are insightful.

I like your remark about balance between rules and freedom. You fill in the blanks as you go. You can make the game your own easily. It leaves you room for imagination. All these points are very, very much true of OD&D, in my opinion.

Also the remark that the whole system is not really inter-connected is spot on, in the sense that you can take apart some parts of the system and replace them by something else that makes sense to you without being scared of destroying the whole game.

This is the part I'm talking about:
I used to think: Classic D&D isn’t consistant enough mechanically.

Now I think:

1. Different things deserve different mechanics. One size does not always fit all.
2. Classic D&D is so mechanically simple, consistency wouldn’t really buy you much. There aren’t very many subsystems, they are all dead simple, & only a few make up the bulk of play.
3. See Unified mechanic

 

[hong]

Robert Fisher's website is shock full of interesting remarks. It makes for a (series of) good read(s). The I used to think... article points out very simple and straightforward arguments. I'm not agreeing with everything (this part made me raise an eyebrow: "A game of coöperation between players is often better when each player has more limited options. PCs created by the rules can be just as much fun (if not more fun) to play than my favorite book/movie character or munchkin idea."), but I think his remarks are insightful.

I don't know. I wouldn't trust any site that quotes Hong's laws of fantasy.