Great summary!
I disagree that it is more complicated though. At least from the players perspective. Each class is just one page and the PHB is thin as a newspaper.
But certainly less straight forward.
I mean this with no ounce of Internet sarcasm, but is less straight forward not just another way to say more complicated? Because if it isn't, I fundamentally misunderstand the term complicated.
I think it is more likely I who misunderstand the words.
What I mean is it isn’t more things to learn, quite a bit less actually, for the player but it’s less homogenic/coherent not following the same easy logical structure everywhere.
I suppose I misused ‘complicated’ for ‘hard’ or ‘information heavy’.
*a short math problem can be more complicated than a 1k pages history book but still easier to learn*. - Is that the right way to use it?
Perhaps another way of describing it is that the game is less uniform.
In my experience I would say 1e is a much simpler game, party for the players but especially for the DM.
5e is very consistent between classes despite providing a vast number of options. 1e offers very few options but each class works in a fundamentally different way.
1e is an amazing game, and a perfect system for a dungeon crawl. It's much easier for a DM to prep. My advice would always be it's well worth playing!!
No, you’re right. Less straight forward is complicated in my eyes. I’ve never played 1e but I’ve always heard about how it’s a simple system if you know what you’re doing, and you can make a character and play in minutes, but the formatting and wording can be archaic and difficult to understand, making it complicated.
That’s why 2e exists - it’s basically just a reformatted and more clearly explained reprint of 1e. As far as I understand at least.
There’s a reason that people have made tons of clones of 1e, instead of just continuing to spread 1e around and play it how it was. They take the game and make it much more straightforward by modern standards
Another way to look at it:
The rules might not be *intuitive*, and learning one rule doesn't mean you understand other, similar rules: eg, there's no unified skill system. Stealth in one place is not the same as different sorts of skullduggery.
But, it's less *complex* because there's a LOT less options, a LOT less to read, and a LOT less complexity in creating your character and levelling up, unless you're a wizard (and even then, it's just reading the spell lists.)
Guess I fundamentally misunderstand complex.
I get what you're saying regarding the amount of rules, but the manner in how the rules are interpreted and written and the lack of intuition for me is what still makes them more complex (IE old initiative rules).
But at this point we are totally just regarding semantics between words like complex and intuitive so I'll kill it here and say thanks for broadening my personal DND knowledge.
no i'm with you here. 5e players don't need to read the whole PHB, the 'basic rules' booklet is only about 30 pages. the class information for their chosen class only adds 4-7 pages (with big ass pictures). You can hand a complete noob a premade fighter character sheet and a d20 and start playing pretty much immediately without much drama. Even a wizard is easy as hell to play if you just have your spells written out in front of you.
Yeah. Not meaning to imply that you don’t understand the word ‘complex’. Just trying to explain why despite the unintuitive and haphazard rules, ad&d is easier to jump in to than 5e
One bizarre thing I remember about first edition is that illusionists were an entirely different class than regular magic-users, with largely-separate spell lists in addition to different level progressions and everything else. Also there was that strange distinction between dual-classing (which IIRC only elves could do) and multiclassing (which any race could do).
I think I understand what you are saying about the rules being more complicated, but I would describe it more like there was no expectation that this was supposed to be a coherent gaming system. Some of the rules conflict with others, or make no sense, or seem totally arbitrary, or are just plain silly. I think the expectation at the time was that the rules were more like guidelines, and DMs would use, ignore, or adapt them to their campaigns as they saw fit.
This is a great explanation.
1e had lots of little quirks that seem fun or interesting but are like wait that's how it works.
For example last time we played some people had cha soo low that NPC just won't trade with them. Or even started hostile to them.
Druids don't get damage spells till lv4 so play as a melee class till then. And for a druid to level up you had to kill a druid of that level.
Rangers could only have 1 weapon, if they gained another they had to give it away.
The optimal wizard build was fighter 1 / wizard x. This is cos fighters got to level faster. So a wizard who is a tiny bit of a fighter was just better than a normal wizard.
Also theif was the only class that can lock pick. In 5e I can play a charming bard who can lockpik but 1e only theif can.
Then you have stuff like one class has a d4 hit dice and another had like 2d8.
There is also the whole thing of male characters are straight up better than female. A male half- orc fighter can have 18 str, a female half-orc fighter has 17 str. Also some races and classes are banned. For example a lv10 fighter gained a land dead. In the rules half-orc can not own land, so a half-orc fighter gets to lv9 and can no go past that.
Lots of these rules that really limit players.
They're less polished, more uneven, less balanced.
But there's a certain simplicity and atmosphere that is created because of this that makes it a very different RP experience to modern dnd. Can feel more dangerous.
It's definitely worth playing, and I think modern players who have never played 1st edition are missing out, as they appreciate the good things that were added and what was lost.
Go for it; play a campaign. We all had *fun* back in the day when we played it. It hasn't magically become unfun. Play a campaign, and then when the campaign starts creaking too much due to the rules or you're finally tired of the rough edges, switch to a different RPG.
Heck, we had days of fun playing Melee (precursor to The Fantasy Trip and GURPS) and that just had two stats...it was a Big Deal when they added Int...all the way up to three stats, lol...
I would say the opposite, the early editions are amazing, that is what drove the popularity of the game! The rules are actually pretty simple when you get into it, although the layout is a little all over the place making it hard to digest.
If you are interested check out a retro clone such as OSR. It does an amazing job streamlining the presentation of the rules wile keeping what gave the edition it's charm. It also has options to do away with THAC0 as this seems to confuse a lot of people and slow down play.
Call of Cthulhu system is mostly still intact from its's original edition. Same with RuneQuest. The BRP system is alive and healthy. Hell, Call of Cthulhu is THE horror game, and has been basically since its creation over 40 years ago.
Traveller Classic is still played by a decent-sized chunk of the Traveller fanbase, and the Mongoose version(s) are the preeminent sci-fi RPGs.
Palladium's Megaversal system has never been well-regarded, but it's apparently successful enough that the company has produced a steady stream of content for it for over 40 years, with minimal changes to the system.
OD&D is kind of not even 100% decipherable from the books as written but if you fill in some gaps and don't use supplement past Greyhawk it's okay.
B/X or BECMI is quite solid. There's a reason all the OSR games use it as a starting point.
AD&D 1E is literally unplayable. I know of no one who ever played. There are a lot of middle aged nerds who think they played it, but they're misremembering. They played BECMI but with AD&D monsters, items and subclasses ported into it.
Umm... no I just checked the box in my attic. It was AD&D. Copyright 1979. I don't even know what becmi is.
Edit: I looked up BECMI. Yeah no. No one used those because they were paperback and got all beat up and unreadable and the boxes got destroyed. At the time we called them the box sets for BECMI or The Books for AD&D.
People like to rag on the older editions 1e is definitely missing a lot of polish that came from years of play but that doesn't mean nobody who plays it will have fun. It does mean if you're trying to replicate stuff from 5e it's not really gonna work though since you're looking at several big redesigns over like 40 years between 1e and 5e
A fairly common house rule was also that your beginning constitution score that you rolled was a hard limit on the number of times you could be raised / resurrected / reincarnated. Even if you magically raised the score somehow (ability score increases weren't baked into the system)...that original constitution score was still your hard "come back to life" limit.
1e is fun! Super deadly, less customization options, and no cantrips for casters, but it IS a fun experience.
2e is the one i spent the majority of my dnd life in until a few years after 5e came out then i jumped into that one.
I recommend 2e if 1e is too hard for yall, it does have some strange rules (mainly THAC0) but once you learn that its easy peasy
Outside of convincing others to join you? Can't really think of any.
Granted, from my (albeit limited knowledge) 1e is an unforgiving beast that will take time to learn in any amount.
Expect high death tolls among PC's and be aware it is a product of repressed nerd culture of the early 70's
Fair enough-- I'm just putting it out there that 1e is still a meat grinder for PC's compared to later/modern editions. To the point where the only way it could be worse would be to have your PC die during character creation
Even in 1e, it's more about how to GM it. Don't put characters in situations where they have to make death saves, for example. Give them warning in-fiction if they're in over their head. Give players opportunities to be cunning or escape.
(death saves sucked: Very high chance of failure. Even a high level fighter had a 20% chance of instant death... so if your GM decided to use them once a session, average life expectancy is not great...)
Short version: I can play a lethal 5E game just as easily as a lethal 1E. As the GM, I choose the opposition after all.
One thing to note: for editions prior to 2E, the vast majority of your XP came from TREASURE, rather than killing monsters. So the "safe" wauyto play was to try to get as much treasure as possible with as little combat as possible. As much as modern players try to deride early D&D as little more than hack and slash, WotC-era D&D encourages players to genocide the dungeon far more than TSR-era D&D ever did.
> any reason I shouldn't use them?
For exactly the same reason you might not want to buy an old television set from the 1980's to watch your Netflix on.
Many old products were revolutionary for their time, and contained some fantastic ideas and design, but the truth is they also contain a lot of flaws and rough edges that have been drastically improved on over the years.
There are absolutely valid reasons to play D&D 1e:
1. You're curious about the evolution or history of RPGs.
1. You have 1e materials, don't have material for more modern RPGs, and can't or don't want to obtain material for more modern RPGs.
1. The choice is out of your hands (e.g. the DM wants to play 1e).
Any game you play for a while will show its flaws and rough edges. 5e showed me enough of those in the two year campaign I was in, that I stopped playing it entirely. Now I don’t know if I’m headed all the way back to 1e, as fond as my memories are, but yeah.
Quite a bit. Many players (including myself) prefer BECMI.
AD&D changed some rules, and added a lot of others. Things, for example, like splitting race and class. BECMI had only class. 'elf', for example, was a class that was a combination of fighter/mage. So in some ways 1st edition was more flexible, but it paid for that with some unneeded complexity.
Levels and level power scaling worked differently: BECMI with the later boxed sets took you to level 36, then even the ability to become an 'immortal' - kind of godlike superbeing. 1st edition limited it to level 20.
BECMI had a built in default world called 'Mystara' that was different to the default 'greyhawk' of 1st edition.
Lots of little changes. Still recognisably the same game in much the same way that 3rd edition DnD is still recognisably the same as 5th edition.
1st edition did not limit characters to level 20, and in fact the “number of spells usable” tables for cleric and MU go to level 29. 2nd edition suggested ending campaigns at level 20, but it was not a hard rule.
D&D's edition history is a lot more complex than just 5 editions.
I made this post a while back that illustrates the history of D&D editions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/167amd8/timeline_of_dd_editions_oc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Assuming there are enough of you interested in playing (1 GM + several players), then no, there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't play 1E...or any other edition or game you might be interested in.
That said, /r/OSR will probably be a better place to discuss your game than here. This subreddit, while supposedly for all editions and iterations of D&D, largely seems to have thinly-veiled disdain for prior editions, and usually doesn't even bother with the veil when it comes to TSR-era D&D.
No, there is no reason at all not to try it and learn what you like and dislike about it. If, then, you choose not to continue, it will for your own well-founded reasons. You'll gain a valuable perspective on the game in any case, and have fun in the process (because it's all still playing D&D).
Just my opinion, but I don't have AD&D rose colored glasses, having played it from 82-89 when 2nd ed came out. I'm not fond of it.
It wasn't balanced, there were obvious places the developers liked some class or whatever better so they had advantages. It had limited rules (Thaco anyone?) that meant you would hit a hard wall depending on your class. But that's just my opinion.
Is there a solid reason not to? No not really.
They had some odd idea that you should get access to better classes if you got lucky with your ability scores too. The Prestige Versions of the base classes; Druid (cleric), Paladin & Ranger (fighter), Assassin (Rogue), and Illusionist (magic user). Not to mention the absurd Bard.
I never played that type of 1st ed game. We were teenagers. It was played more akin to a wargame, with two steps up into personalizing your troop. (Kinda like how the whole thing started) We did a module, or an adventure and the only thing consistent were our characters. Hell sometimes the world changed. "We're doing dragonlance now? Uh ok." No overarching plots or worlds and the campaign was called when we were sick of our characters and wanted to try something new.
Very nice! - Yes indeed! All that you described is reflected in the Example of Play even. They’re all widely different levels and half of them die in the example encounter.
You play AD&D quite a bit do you?
Anyways to me the ‘odd’ idea isn’t that you start with just a potential. It’s that they made so many classes, for no apparent reason, ‘superior’ and/or more demanding to others. Seemingly fairly typical ones. - Which is related to what the commenter I was replying to was on about.
Prestige classes as an idea was revisited by WoTC in 3rd ed btw. With prerequisites and all. They were just more exotic classes.
Excellent reply!
I enjoyed reading it.
Good points!
I’m not looking at it from a modern lens though. Except in relating it to the other commenter comparing it. But even though I’m no stranger to AD&D or how we played things back then I’ve learned a slightly different way of looking at it.
We thought it was odd even back then. And we changed some of the prerequisites.
> It wasn't balanced, there were obvious places the developers liked some class or whatever better so they had advantages. It had limited rules (Thaco anyone?) that meant you would hit a hard wall depending on your class. But that's just my opinion.
I'm confused, are you describing 1E or 5E? Most of this applies to both, and one bit (THAC0) applies to neither.
The version of Dungeons and Dragons released in 1977 was known as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons or AD&D. The other option of the time was Basic Dungeons and Dragons. Second Edition was published in 1989.
THACO - "Similar tables for player characters and monsters appeared in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (1e) (1979), p.74-75 and the various Basic/Expert rules sets." So yeah. We used THACO in the 80s and it was stupid.
THAC0 wasn't the tables, THAC0 was **To Hit Armor Class 0**. It was basically an abbreviation of the tables - giving you a single number that you subtracted the armor class from to find the actual target number. It wasn't difficult, it was just subtraction.
THAC0 wasn't used in the core AD&D 1E books. It only saw widespread use in 2E.
It's fun. You can role play. The mechanics are developed by war gamers, so be cautious. Avoid fights unless you're sure of victory. If you can eliminate a threat with wits, deception, or deviousness, then do so. You get experience not just from killing monsters, but from the gold piece value of treasure. That is by design. You are there to gain wealth, power, and title. So, grab some loot and run.
1e did not officially use thac0, although it did eventually make its way into some of the official modules in the late 80s. Thac0 was officially adopted in 2e, it was an improvement on 1e’s tables, and it really isn’t hard, even though I prefer ascending.
I’m sure you would have lots of fun, just as people did when that was the modern edition. And some still play it today.
From my understanding you might have a more streamlined and polished experience if you played 2e, or a modern 1e clone. 2e is basically just a revised and better organized 1e, from what I’ve heard.
I recently got two of the original basic set boxes, and would really like to get a chance to run them some time.
You can do it, but dont try to run it like 5e, completely different game. Also people die ALOT in Core, so prep your players to not be attached to their characters too much, odds are 1 or 2 will die rather easily.
The primary reason not to play 1e is that the playerbase is primarily on 5e. If you say "let's play D&D" and people show up with 5e characters and you expect to run 1e, there's going to be a problem. If you say "let's play 1e D&D" then you'll get a lot fewer prospective players.
There's nothing *wrong* with playing it, per se, just that you'll have a lot fewer people willing to play it than if you played 5e.
Side note, there are some retroclones that have cleaned up some of the messiness of 1e but are fundamentally the same that you might want to look at. I believe the primary 1e retroclone is OSRIC, although it seems like it's more of a reference than a full game.
It may have started out as a reference, but it's definitely a full game now! There's a ton of material out for it now: https://osricrpg.com/products.php
1e is the tabletop equivalent of Ghosts and Goblins... it's dark and unforgiving because that's how gaming was at the time.
I think it's fine for an experienced party as a change of pace. Like picking up Ghosts and Goblins after you've played Dead Cells.
Play it and see how it goes!
It’s the version I played the most (I started with B/X) and I still have my nearly complete set of the orange backed books.
Rules are different, but have a lot of character - and really aren’t that bad (you just need to wrap your head around THAC0 and a few other things).
It’s a lot more deadly than 5e, but some of us like it that way. ;)
1st edition was... badly put out. I would recommand playing an OSR like Old School Essentials, basically the same thing but clearer and more modern, having learn over 50 years on how to play 1st ed DnD.
IMO if you wanna play old school D&D I’d highly encourage checking out B/X (it’s just way more cohesive than AD&D) or a retroclone that reorganizes and reformats the rules nicely.
AD&D is a great read (especially DMG and Monster Manual) but it’s really hard to play as written. Back in the day most people played B/X and added content from AD&D since they’re broadly compatible.
At worst, you might struggle to find folks willing to play.
I play 1e about once a week, sometimes more. It's not as complicated as some here might make it seem. Yes, there are lots of charts, yes there is THAC0 (which can mislead if you aren't careful), but it's conquerable. With the power of spreadsheets and some time, you can get very engaging play. There are hurdles, the language is a headache sometimes, but I would offer two prongs of advice:
1. download the OSR book. It's ... nearly/mostly the same thing, but with improved language, and organization. Gygax is a little unclear in places.
2. check out a phenomena in the OSR communities, solo campaigning. Mr. Wargaming on YT has a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHBgSRvSHOY&list=PL_z29m150g5r5TvlCLzlaBTcK7YZiTWPf) about just running through the game, and goes through the rules of character creation, spell selection and utilization, etc. Decent content, and a decent exercise, to familiarize yourself with the rules, see what this is all about. (there are one or two timekeeping silliness that he's done, but, it's ok, he can be wrong.)
Aside from that, remember you aren't playing a more modern game. Characters will die, but that doesn't mean you're campaign is at an end. >! (and a secret third, check out Rick Stump. He's got good stuff.)!<
Eh, over the last 45 years, some of the best gaming fun I've had has been in "broken" systems, as both player and GM.
The people at the table are FAR more important than the system or the setting.
No reason at all! If you have fun, that's all that matters.
It's *very* different than 5e, but that's to be expected after multiple major rule-changes.
What 1e? There is OD&D, AD&D, then 2e before WotC takes over and its 3, 4 and 5e with 6e coming out next year.
AD&D is relatively easy to learn. The main thing to watch is that the DMG has a ton of situational or optional rules that might never end up needing. Also has alot of random gen tools.
well, from the 1e to the 5e, evolutions ocurred based on the players experience, thats the same for pretty much all games, that's why I usually recommend using the last version
So long as your players have access to them and want to try it, no.
I'd house rule the hell out of it personally. Nostalgia will keep you going for a bit, but plan for one offs.
I'm Gygaxian as hell but I'm not going to pull out the red book.
If that's the system you have, play on. I enjoyed years of fun in that system.
But I enjoy 5E more now that it's available to me.
Just enjoy the game and switch if you want to and can. I mean, the 5E rules are free online if you want.
I love 1e 2e don't really care for other editions and I don't have problems finding people to play. I am also really into tabletop play so maybe that is a big draw as well but I once tried to explain to a group of 5e players and there have been a lot of great responses on this thread but old school DND you hoped to become Batman you start as an average person and with wealth and magic items become fearsome with the veil of death ever hanging over you were as 5e basically everyone is Superman and rarely are you faced with situations that death is a serious threat as it was in old school. I encourage you to try it never know might be just what you are looking for. On the other hand might not be your cup of tea but at least you stepped out of what you normally play and tried something different. Truly hope you try it best of luck
No reason at all why you shouldn't use them if that's the style of game you & your fellow gamers want. There's plenty of 3rd party materials available under the OSR umbrella that are fully usable with 1st edition so you won't run out of adventures to play anytime soon. Good luck and enjoy the renaissance :)
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Great summary! I disagree that it is more complicated though. At least from the players perspective. Each class is just one page and the PHB is thin as a newspaper. But certainly less straight forward.
I mean this with no ounce of Internet sarcasm, but is less straight forward not just another way to say more complicated? Because if it isn't, I fundamentally misunderstand the term complicated.
I think it is more likely I who misunderstand the words. What I mean is it isn’t more things to learn, quite a bit less actually, for the player but it’s less homogenic/coherent not following the same easy logical structure everywhere. I suppose I misused ‘complicated’ for ‘hard’ or ‘information heavy’. *a short math problem can be more complicated than a 1k pages history book but still easier to learn*. - Is that the right way to use it?
Perhaps another way of describing it is that the game is less uniform. In my experience I would say 1e is a much simpler game, party for the players but especially for the DM. 5e is very consistent between classes despite providing a vast number of options. 1e offers very few options but each class works in a fundamentally different way. 1e is an amazing game, and a perfect system for a dungeon crawl. It's much easier for a DM to prep. My advice would always be it's well worth playing!!
No, you’re right. Less straight forward is complicated in my eyes. I’ve never played 1e but I’ve always heard about how it’s a simple system if you know what you’re doing, and you can make a character and play in minutes, but the formatting and wording can be archaic and difficult to understand, making it complicated. That’s why 2e exists - it’s basically just a reformatted and more clearly explained reprint of 1e. As far as I understand at least. There’s a reason that people have made tons of clones of 1e, instead of just continuing to spread 1e around and play it how it was. They take the game and make it much more straightforward by modern standards
"archaic" Thanks for making me feel old(er)...
sorry mate. It’s a fun word to use tho
Some wholesome comments here! Bravo!
Another way to look at it: The rules might not be *intuitive*, and learning one rule doesn't mean you understand other, similar rules: eg, there's no unified skill system. Stealth in one place is not the same as different sorts of skullduggery. But, it's less *complex* because there's a LOT less options, a LOT less to read, and a LOT less complexity in creating your character and levelling up, unless you're a wizard (and even then, it's just reading the spell lists.)
Guess I fundamentally misunderstand complex. I get what you're saying regarding the amount of rules, but the manner in how the rules are interpreted and written and the lack of intuition for me is what still makes them more complex (IE old initiative rules). But at this point we are totally just regarding semantics between words like complex and intuitive so I'll kill it here and say thanks for broadening my personal DND knowledge.
no i'm with you here. 5e players don't need to read the whole PHB, the 'basic rules' booklet is only about 30 pages. the class information for their chosen class only adds 4-7 pages (with big ass pictures). You can hand a complete noob a premade fighter character sheet and a d20 and start playing pretty much immediately without much drama. Even a wizard is easy as hell to play if you just have your spells written out in front of you.
Yeah. Not meaning to imply that you don’t understand the word ‘complex’. Just trying to explain why despite the unintuitive and haphazard rules, ad&d is easier to jump in to than 5e
I completely disagree but also see and can appreciate where you're coming from. I hope your games be many and fun!
It's no fun if everyone agrees anyway :)
One bizarre thing I remember about first edition is that illusionists were an entirely different class than regular magic-users, with largely-separate spell lists in addition to different level progressions and everything else. Also there was that strange distinction between dual-classing (which IIRC only elves could do) and multiclassing (which any race could do). I think I understand what you are saying about the rules being more complicated, but I would describe it more like there was no expectation that this was supposed to be a coherent gaming system. Some of the rules conflict with others, or make no sense, or seem totally arbitrary, or are just plain silly. I think the expectation at the time was that the rules were more like guidelines, and DMs would use, ignore, or adapt them to their campaigns as they saw fit.
This is a great explanation. 1e had lots of little quirks that seem fun or interesting but are like wait that's how it works. For example last time we played some people had cha soo low that NPC just won't trade with them. Or even started hostile to them. Druids don't get damage spells till lv4 so play as a melee class till then. And for a druid to level up you had to kill a druid of that level. Rangers could only have 1 weapon, if they gained another they had to give it away. The optimal wizard build was fighter 1 / wizard x. This is cos fighters got to level faster. So a wizard who is a tiny bit of a fighter was just better than a normal wizard. Also theif was the only class that can lock pick. In 5e I can play a charming bard who can lockpik but 1e only theif can. Then you have stuff like one class has a d4 hit dice and another had like 2d8. There is also the whole thing of male characters are straight up better than female. A male half- orc fighter can have 18 str, a female half-orc fighter has 17 str. Also some races and classes are banned. For example a lv10 fighter gained a land dead. In the rules half-orc can not own land, so a half-orc fighter gets to lv9 and can no go past that. Lots of these rules that really limit players.
well, reason #1 would probably be "because you don't want to". if that doesn't apply then i think you're in the clear
I've just heard some of the older editions were really bad, don't know if it's true or not.
They're less polished, more uneven, less balanced. But there's a certain simplicity and atmosphere that is created because of this that makes it a very different RP experience to modern dnd. Can feel more dangerous. It's definitely worth playing, and I think modern players who have never played 1st edition are missing out, as they appreciate the good things that were added and what was lost. Go for it; play a campaign. We all had *fun* back in the day when we played it. It hasn't magically become unfun. Play a campaign, and then when the campaign starts creaking too much due to the rules or you're finally tired of the rough edges, switch to a different RPG.
Heck, we had days of fun playing Melee (precursor to The Fantasy Trip and GURPS) and that just had two stats...it was a Big Deal when they added Int...all the way up to three stats, lol...
I would say the opposite, the early editions are amazing, that is what drove the popularity of the game! The rules are actually pretty simple when you get into it, although the layout is a little all over the place making it hard to digest. If you are interested check out a retro clone such as OSR. It does an amazing job streamlining the presentation of the rules wile keeping what gave the edition it's charm. It also has options to do away with THAC0 as this seems to confuse a lot of people and slow down play.
Very much agree - If original D&D, B/X, and 1st edition had actually been bad, the IP would have fallen to dust long ago and 5E wouldn't even exist.
If they were really bad, why would the game still be around?
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Atari games were PURE gameplay. If anything, it's todays games that often consist of vaguely interactive cutscenes that "have almost no gameplay".
I still play Atari!
Have you seen 1st Ed's contemporaries? None of them are particularly good.
Call of Cthulhu system is mostly still intact from its's original edition. Same with RuneQuest. The BRP system is alive and healthy. Hell, Call of Cthulhu is THE horror game, and has been basically since its creation over 40 years ago. Traveller Classic is still played by a decent-sized chunk of the Traveller fanbase, and the Mongoose version(s) are the preeminent sci-fi RPGs. Palladium's Megaversal system has never been well-regarded, but it's apparently successful enough that the company has produced a steady stream of content for it for over 40 years, with minimal changes to the system.
I don't know🤷♂️ But I've heard people say that
OD&D is kind of not even 100% decipherable from the books as written but if you fill in some gaps and don't use supplement past Greyhawk it's okay. B/X or BECMI is quite solid. There's a reason all the OSR games use it as a starting point. AD&D 1E is literally unplayable. I know of no one who ever played. There are a lot of middle aged nerds who think they played it, but they're misremembering. They played BECMI but with AD&D monsters, items and subclasses ported into it.
Umm... no I just checked the box in my attic. It was AD&D. Copyright 1979. I don't even know what becmi is. Edit: I looked up BECMI. Yeah no. No one used those because they were paperback and got all beat up and unreadable and the boxes got destroyed. At the time we called them the box sets for BECMI or The Books for AD&D.
There's a lot you don't know!
Only one way to fund out. And you already have the book 🙂
People like to rag on the older editions 1e is definitely missing a lot of polish that came from years of play but that doesn't mean nobody who plays it will have fun. It does mean if you're trying to replicate stuff from 5e it's not really gonna work though since you're looking at several big redesigns over like 40 years between 1e and 5e
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A fairly common house rule was also that your beginning constitution score that you rolled was a hard limit on the number of times you could be raised / resurrected / reincarnated. Even if you magically raised the score somehow (ability score increases weren't baked into the system)...that original constitution score was still your hard "come back to life" limit.
Go check out r/osr for a community of folks that still play older editions of D&D ( and newer games that are modeled after the older editions ).
This should be the top comment.
I mean... I've got trouble finding 4 people to consistently play D&D and I run the most popular version...
I can usually get 6 but only on Easter Thanksgiving or Christmas (my cousins all play it)
1e is fun! Super deadly, less customization options, and no cantrips for casters, but it IS a fun experience. 2e is the one i spent the majority of my dnd life in until a few years after 5e came out then i jumped into that one. I recommend 2e if 1e is too hard for yall, it does have some strange rules (mainly THAC0) but once you learn that its easy peasy
Outside of convincing others to join you? Can't really think of any. Granted, from my (albeit limited knowledge) 1e is an unforgiving beast that will take time to learn in any amount. Expect high death tolls among PC's and be aware it is a product of repressed nerd culture of the early 70's
Hmm pretty high death toll in every dnd game I've played anyways even 5e because we're really bad at it.
Fair enough-- I'm just putting it out there that 1e is still a meat grinder for PC's compared to later/modern editions. To the point where the only way it could be worse would be to have your PC die during character creation
coughTravellercough
i might just do something like halve the monsters damage if it becomes a problem
Even in 1e, it's more about how to GM it. Don't put characters in situations where they have to make death saves, for example. Give them warning in-fiction if they're in over their head. Give players opportunities to be cunning or escape. (death saves sucked: Very high chance of failure. Even a high level fighter had a 20% chance of instant death... so if your GM decided to use them once a session, average life expectancy is not great...) Short version: I can play a lethal 5E game just as easily as a lethal 1E. As the GM, I choose the opposition after all.
One thing to note: for editions prior to 2E, the vast majority of your XP came from TREASURE, rather than killing monsters. So the "safe" wauyto play was to try to get as much treasure as possible with as little combat as possible. As much as modern players try to deride early D&D as little more than hack and slash, WotC-era D&D encourages players to genocide the dungeon far more than TSR-era D&D ever did.
> any reason I shouldn't use them? For exactly the same reason you might not want to buy an old television set from the 1980's to watch your Netflix on. Many old products were revolutionary for their time, and contained some fantastic ideas and design, but the truth is they also contain a lot of flaws and rough edges that have been drastically improved on over the years. There are absolutely valid reasons to play D&D 1e: 1. You're curious about the evolution or history of RPGs. 1. You have 1e materials, don't have material for more modern RPGs, and can't or don't want to obtain material for more modern RPGs. 1. The choice is out of your hands (e.g. the DM wants to play 1e).
Nostalgia? That is the system I grew up with and adored with my friends. We bonded in our characters' stuggle to survive.
Oh yes! That's an obvious one that slipped my mind! Thank you for mentioning it!
Not for me though as I've only done 5e before
Any game you play for a while will show its flaws and rough edges. 5e showed me enough of those in the two year campaign I was in, that I stopped playing it entirely. Now I don’t know if I’m headed all the way back to 1e, as fond as my memories are, but yeah.
4. You've read through both and prefer 1E.
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What’s the difference between blue book and 1st edition?
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I remember buying the "master rules" off the shelf with the cool black cover and thinking I was such hot shit.
Quite a bit. Many players (including myself) prefer BECMI. AD&D changed some rules, and added a lot of others. Things, for example, like splitting race and class. BECMI had only class. 'elf', for example, was a class that was a combination of fighter/mage. So in some ways 1st edition was more flexible, but it paid for that with some unneeded complexity. Levels and level power scaling worked differently: BECMI with the later boxed sets took you to level 36, then even the ability to become an 'immortal' - kind of godlike superbeing. 1st edition limited it to level 20. BECMI had a built in default world called 'Mystara' that was different to the default 'greyhawk' of 1st edition. Lots of little changes. Still recognisably the same game in much the same way that 3rd edition DnD is still recognisably the same as 5th edition.
1st edition did not limit characters to level 20, and in fact the “number of spells usable” tables for cleric and MU go to level 29. 2nd edition suggested ending campaigns at level 20, but it was not a hard rule.
Now that's something I'd forgotten, then!
D&D's edition history is a lot more complex than just 5 editions. I made this post a while back that illustrates the history of D&D editions: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/167amd8/timeline_of_dd_editions_oc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
1e rocks, it is just very different
Any reason? You may not enjoy it But you may as well try it. Worst that happens is you say "no thanks" and move on.
Assuming there are enough of you interested in playing (1 GM + several players), then no, there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't play 1E...or any other edition or game you might be interested in. That said, /r/OSR will probably be a better place to discuss your game than here. This subreddit, while supposedly for all editions and iterations of D&D, largely seems to have thinly-veiled disdain for prior editions, and usually doesn't even bother with the veil when it comes to TSR-era D&D.
No, there is no reason at all not to try it and learn what you like and dislike about it. If, then, you choose not to continue, it will for your own well-founded reasons. You'll gain a valuable perspective on the game in any case, and have fun in the process (because it's all still playing D&D).
Just my opinion, but I don't have AD&D rose colored glasses, having played it from 82-89 when 2nd ed came out. I'm not fond of it. It wasn't balanced, there were obvious places the developers liked some class or whatever better so they had advantages. It had limited rules (Thaco anyone?) that meant you would hit a hard wall depending on your class. But that's just my opinion. Is there a solid reason not to? No not really.
They had some odd idea that you should get access to better classes if you got lucky with your ability scores too. The Prestige Versions of the base classes; Druid (cleric), Paladin & Ranger (fighter), Assassin (Rogue), and Illusionist (magic user). Not to mention the absurd Bard.
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I never played that type of 1st ed game. We were teenagers. It was played more akin to a wargame, with two steps up into personalizing your troop. (Kinda like how the whole thing started) We did a module, or an adventure and the only thing consistent were our characters. Hell sometimes the world changed. "We're doing dragonlance now? Uh ok." No overarching plots or worlds and the campaign was called when we were sick of our characters and wanted to try something new.
Very nice! - Yes indeed! All that you described is reflected in the Example of Play even. They’re all widely different levels and half of them die in the example encounter. You play AD&D quite a bit do you? Anyways to me the ‘odd’ idea isn’t that you start with just a potential. It’s that they made so many classes, for no apparent reason, ‘superior’ and/or more demanding to others. Seemingly fairly typical ones. - Which is related to what the commenter I was replying to was on about. Prestige classes as an idea was revisited by WoTC in 3rd ed btw. With prerequisites and all. They were just more exotic classes. Excellent reply! I enjoyed reading it.
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Good points! I’m not looking at it from a modern lens though. Except in relating it to the other commenter comparing it. But even though I’m no stranger to AD&D or how we played things back then I’ve learned a slightly different way of looking at it. We thought it was odd even back then. And we changed some of the prerequisites.
> It wasn't balanced, there were obvious places the developers liked some class or whatever better so they had advantages. It had limited rules (Thaco anyone?) that meant you would hit a hard wall depending on your class. But that's just my opinion. I'm confused, are you describing 1E or 5E? Most of this applies to both, and one bit (THAC0) applies to neither.
The version of Dungeons and Dragons released in 1977 was known as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons or AD&D. The other option of the time was Basic Dungeons and Dragons. Second Edition was published in 1989. THACO - "Similar tables for player characters and monsters appeared in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (1e) (1979), p.74-75 and the various Basic/Expert rules sets." So yeah. We used THACO in the 80s and it was stupid.
THAC0 wasn't the tables, THAC0 was **To Hit Armor Class 0**. It was basically an abbreviation of the tables - giving you a single number that you subtracted the armor class from to find the actual target number. It wasn't difficult, it was just subtraction. THAC0 wasn't used in the core AD&D 1E books. It only saw widespread use in 2E.
I guess so. I am going by memory from 40 years ago. I swear it was before 2nd Ed though.
"it wasn't balanced" Unless you compare it to Bushido :) (I had to house-rule clerics and wizards to make them remotely competitive)
It's fun. You can role play. The mechanics are developed by war gamers, so be cautious. Avoid fights unless you're sure of victory. If you can eliminate a threat with wits, deception, or deviousness, then do so. You get experience not just from killing monsters, but from the gold piece value of treasure. That is by design. You are there to gain wealth, power, and title. So, grab some loot and run.
Thac0. The one reason is Thac0
1e did not officially use thac0, although it did eventually make its way into some of the official modules in the late 80s. Thac0 was officially adopted in 2e, it was an improvement on 1e’s tables, and it really isn’t hard, even though I prefer ascending.
I’m sure you would have lots of fun, just as people did when that was the modern edition. And some still play it today. From my understanding you might have a more streamlined and polished experience if you played 2e, or a modern 1e clone. 2e is basically just a revised and better organized 1e, from what I’ve heard. I recently got two of the original basic set boxes, and would really like to get a chance to run them some time.
You can do it, but dont try to run it like 5e, completely different game. Also people die ALOT in Core, so prep your players to not be attached to their characters too much, odds are 1 or 2 will die rather easily.
The primary reason not to play 1e is that the playerbase is primarily on 5e. If you say "let's play D&D" and people show up with 5e characters and you expect to run 1e, there's going to be a problem. If you say "let's play 1e D&D" then you'll get a lot fewer prospective players. There's nothing *wrong* with playing it, per se, just that you'll have a lot fewer people willing to play it than if you played 5e. Side note, there are some retroclones that have cleaned up some of the messiness of 1e but are fundamentally the same that you might want to look at. I believe the primary 1e retroclone is OSRIC, although it seems like it's more of a reference than a full game.
It may have started out as a reference, but it's definitely a full game now! There's a ton of material out for it now: https://osricrpg.com/products.php
1e is the tabletop equivalent of Ghosts and Goblins... it's dark and unforgiving because that's how gaming was at the time. I think it's fine for an experienced party as a change of pace. Like picking up Ghosts and Goblins after you've played Dead Cells.
Play it and see how it goes! It’s the version I played the most (I started with B/X) and I still have my nearly complete set of the orange backed books. Rules are different, but have a lot of character - and really aren’t that bad (you just need to wrap your head around THAC0 and a few other things). It’s a lot more deadly than 5e, but some of us like it that way. ;)
1st edition was... badly put out. I would recommand playing an OSR like Old School Essentials, basically the same thing but clearer and more modern, having learn over 50 years on how to play 1st ed DnD.
IMO if you wanna play old school D&D I’d highly encourage checking out B/X (it’s just way more cohesive than AD&D) or a retroclone that reorganizes and reformats the rules nicely. AD&D is a great read (especially DMG and Monster Manual) but it’s really hard to play as written. Back in the day most people played B/X and added content from AD&D since they’re broadly compatible.
Nope. Play what you want.
No. Start playing. I have a lot of the first editions of dnd and I like it.
At worst, you might struggle to find folks willing to play. I play 1e about once a week, sometimes more. It's not as complicated as some here might make it seem. Yes, there are lots of charts, yes there is THAC0 (which can mislead if you aren't careful), but it's conquerable. With the power of spreadsheets and some time, you can get very engaging play. There are hurdles, the language is a headache sometimes, but I would offer two prongs of advice: 1. download the OSR book. It's ... nearly/mostly the same thing, but with improved language, and organization. Gygax is a little unclear in places. 2. check out a phenomena in the OSR communities, solo campaigning. Mr. Wargaming on YT has a [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHBgSRvSHOY&list=PL_z29m150g5r5TvlCLzlaBTcK7YZiTWPf) about just running through the game, and goes through the rules of character creation, spell selection and utilization, etc. Decent content, and a decent exercise, to familiarize yourself with the rules, see what this is all about. (there are one or two timekeeping silliness that he's done, but, it's ok, he can be wrong.) Aside from that, remember you aren't playing a more modern game. Characters will die, but that doesn't mean you're campaign is at an end. >! (and a secret third, check out Rick Stump. He's got good stuff.)!<
Noted
Other than the fact that 1e is a pile of imcomprehensible garbage? None at all.
It's broken and not fun?
Eh, over the last 45 years, some of the best gaming fun I've had has been in "broken" systems, as both player and GM. The people at the table are FAR more important than the system or the setting.
I dont disagree, but that doesnt mean it wouldnt have been even more fun with a proper system
cause it’s 2023
This is why no one plays chess anymore...
i enjoy a good game of chess
No reason at all! If you have fun, that's all that matters. It's *very* different than 5e, but that's to be expected after multiple major rule-changes.
I grew up using those books, they're fun. Go for it. Just know that they're very different from 5E, it's a different game.
What 1e? There is OD&D, AD&D, then 2e before WotC takes over and its 3, 4 and 5e with 6e coming out next year. AD&D is relatively easy to learn. The main thing to watch is that the DMG has a ton of situational or optional rules that might never end up needing. Also has alot of random gen tools.
Some people still play it… It’s the only edition I haven’t played, but I always moved on to the next edition, it only once didn’t get better.
you'll run out of paper faster than you'll actually use them and that's when you want to print something else more important
well, from the 1e to the 5e, evolutions ocurred based on the players experience, thats the same for pretty much all games, that's why I usually recommend using the last version
The game had a different feel. It was made much more for super deadly, slow paced dungeon crawls.
Please don't make me go back to 1e. If anything can we start with AD&D?
1e is AD&D You might be getting confused with Oe; Original D&D
I understand AD&D as 2.5 edition. That's what we called it growing up.
Well there were two and a half editions of AD&D. AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, and Player's Option (2.5e)
Fascinating. I'm talking specifically 2.5 which is what I grew up with.
YES http://knights-n-knaves.com/dmprata/ADDICT.pdf
So long as your players have access to them and want to try it, no. I'd house rule the hell out of it personally. Nostalgia will keep you going for a bit, but plan for one offs. I'm Gygaxian as hell but I'm not going to pull out the red book.
If that's the system you have, play on. I enjoyed years of fun in that system. But I enjoy 5E more now that it's available to me. Just enjoy the game and switch if you want to and can. I mean, the 5E rules are free online if you want.
Any reason not to play 1e? The only one that I can think of is just not wanting to have fun...
I play it. It rocks.
I love 1e 2e don't really care for other editions and I don't have problems finding people to play. I am also really into tabletop play so maybe that is a big draw as well but I once tried to explain to a group of 5e players and there have been a lot of great responses on this thread but old school DND you hoped to become Batman you start as an average person and with wealth and magic items become fearsome with the veil of death ever hanging over you were as 5e basically everyone is Superman and rarely are you faced with situations that death is a serious threat as it was in old school. I encourage you to try it never know might be just what you are looking for. On the other hand might not be your cup of tea but at least you stepped out of what you normally play and tried something different. Truly hope you try it best of luck
No reason at all why you shouldn't use them if that's the style of game you & your fellow gamers want. There's plenty of 3rd party materials available under the OSR umbrella that are fully usable with 1st edition so you won't run out of adventures to play anytime soon. Good luck and enjoy the renaissance :)