Why people like to play OD&D (1974)

[Odhanan]

Cool laws, Hong!
The first law goes straight in my sig!

 

[Glyfair]

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

Red Box wasn't even the first version of Basic D&D!

 

[howandwhy99]

Shoot. Just reading this thread filled my head with dozens of things to say about OD&D and about our game specifically. But it just to late to post them all. Hopefully Loki44 and JoeBlank will see this thread and chime in tomorrow.

First things first though. It looks like it was stated above, but the OD&D rules Diaglo is talking about are from the 3 small pamphlets: the wood box and the collecter edition white box. (yeah, he's got a few of them)

I'm thinking he'll repost the D&D historical breakdown of editions in the morning. I'll try and find time at work to add my own two cents.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

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.

Yeah, I don't agree with everything he says, but I thought he made some good points.

As far as limited options go, I don't see classic D&D as limiting, so I wouldn't have said anything like Mr. Fisher's, statement, above. I think classic D&D gives you a selection of common archetypes (i.e. classes) that are typical, but I don't think that prevents other interpretations or classes. 3E isn't limited to the only the classes in the core books, and D&D isn't limited to only the classes in its basic rules. As to limitations from a lack of feats/skills, I find greater freedom in a coarse-grained system, where the skills and "feats" a PC can perform are decided by a combination of his class/archetype, his background, and the judgment of the players and DM (e.g. if it seems like an appropriate action for the chracter it could be handled by some sort of attribute check, modified by level, et cetera).

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.

Yes. I've played RPGs for decades, now, and I've gone through a lot of phases. Lately I've found myself coming "full circle" and taking a hard look at what I like about role playing games and what has been the most fun. Where I want to be on the rules vs. freedom scale is one of the central questions. Personally, I find fewer rules and more freedom to be more empowering and more fun. At least at this point.

Switching to "fewer rules/more freedom" in our main game is a relatively recent thing, for my group. But I've been very encouraged at how the game has picked up since we made that shift. That thing I said about players looking at their characters sheets to see what they can do is from direct, recent experience. They didn't realize how much they were tied to those lists of things on their sheets until they found themselves looking at sheets that were almost empty, by comparison.

It may not be to everyone's taste, but we've been loving it. (Actually, I'm not talking about an OD&D game, here, but rather a Castles & Crusades game. Same principles apply, though.) Incidentally, I don't subscribe to a "one system to rule them all" philosophy of gaming. There's still a place at my table for other systems, including d20; the C&C game is currently my main game, but not my only game.

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.

I thought that was a really good point, and one that I'd not considered until I read his site. That is, I knew there were various systems in classic D&D that didn't all work the same way, but I accepted the common criticism that cites that as a negative. I'm not so sure about that, anymore.

 

[blargney the second]

point of fact. i have yet to have someone ask me my opinion about why i love the edition i do and it not turn out badly.

I asked diaglo about that a while ago by private message, and it didn't turn out badly. (at least that I know of!)

I won't repost a private convo without permission, but I hope he chimes in here with the answer he gave me - it certainly shed some light on his posting habits.
-blarg

 

[Hussar]

I started DnD with red box Basic and then the blue box Expert rules. Loved them at the time. Still used them years later to introduce others to gaming. They really are a completely different game from what comes later.

I have fond memories, that's for sure.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I played DnD a lot when I was younger, but didn't get into 1st Ed. ADnD since I was too busy having fun with my red, blue, green, black, and gold box sets. I did buy the 1st Ed. books, though, and still enjoy reading through the old Monster's Manual. When TSR discontinued these lines and concentrated on 2nd Ed. ADnD I got into it but didn't have many 1st Ed. notes to compare it to. I like 3.5 Ed., although I think it is designed for less 'realism' and doesn't encourage role-playing like the older versions of DnD. Most of the games I have been involved with have been mostly a hack-and-slash affair. This can be attributed to the DM, but really most of the products that come out for DnD concentrate on new skills, feats, creatures, and items.

Original DnD also allowed flexibility for the DM. If you wanted to add a crown that would cause insanity to someone who placed it upon his head, or quickly design a creature that attacked with four clawed hands and could jump 20 feet in any direction, you could simply do so in a small amount of time. Now 3.5 is so rules heavy that designing an interesing new item or creature becomes a tedious affair. Also, you leave yourself open to rules lawyers. The older DnD focused on rules for henchmen and building fortresses because it expected that the characters would eventually become powerful in the politics of the game world. Now they are loners going from one dungeon to the next, although they may take over a castle along the way. Instead of concentrating on a storyline, DMs find themselves focused more on stats in 3.5. With skills such as bluff, it is tempting for the DM and player to roll for the results of a dialogue instead of role-playing it out. It's a different game, and original DnD seemed to encourage more role-playing and had a stronger consideration for the role of the characters in the game world than the new version of the game.

Finally, new players that are not sure whether they would get into the game cannot get passed character creation. My wife enjoyed creating her character up until we got into the skills and feats. That became such a complex affair that she decided she didn't want to play after all. The new version of DnD makes character creation fun for us older fans, but the newer fans are intimidated by it and it is harder to convince them that the game is fun when they find character creation so mathematically complex.

This is actually the only real v3.5 sore point with me. Instead of the pencil and paper game, we have graduated to a pencil and paper and computer level. It is almost impossible for even us experienced players to keep track of our characters from creation and to level to level (and DMs to create new dungeons) without using some kind of computer program to do so. How much fun would this game be to us if we didn't have things like eTools to make it easier?

 

[Mycanid]

Well, a friend of mine had some of these books (the one who introduced me to the game) and he loaned them to me and I tried to read them ... this was in 1979 I believe ... but I had difficulty making much sense of them then (I was 9). I first played first released edition of the DnD Basic set.

Here's a descriptive link: http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/basic.html (It's the next page over from what cildarith originally posted as the link for the first versions.

So I cannot claim to have played the actually first set of rules, but to have read them only. I remember reading them and using them to augment the material I read in the Basic set story wise and content wise ... these were bought for me by my folks in 1979. My friend (Adam Pack ... God bless him wherever he is) also let me borrow the first released edition of the DnD Basic set to read as well before I was given it by my folks.

So I did use them to expand my newly developing inner world of greyhawk/rpg/etc. but it was very, very early on and I remember very little other than the occasional graphic and detailed descriptions of some of the monsters that were only mentioned in extreme passing in the DnD material available up to that time....

EDIT TO THIS POST: Just read many of the articles of Robert Fisher and was shocked to find myself not only knowing 95% of EXCATLY what he was talking about but also agreeing with him most of the time?!?! Boy ... I feel like a dusty old unused relic or a rumplestiltskin type now....

 

[Calico_Jack73]

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.

One thing I miss but will probably be flamed for is minimum stats for classes. Back in the day if you were able to roll stats that allowed you to play a Paladin then that was a pretty special thing. If you played with groups who actually rolled dice in order to generate stats it was a rarity to see a Paladin (your Charisma roll HAD to be a 17 or 18). Rangers were in a similar boat but the stats weren't quite so hard to come by. In most cases you played a Fighter who always wanted to be a Paladin or a Ranger. It gave you a feel for how rare these classes should be in a typical game setting. With the current rules set there is no reason you couldn't have a temple full of Paladins in a campaign city.

 

[Mycanid]

NOT RUMPLESTILTSKIN!!!!! RIP VAN WINKLE!!!! Add growing senility to the checklist.....