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Post by cadriel on Feb 8, 2012 20:13:08 GMT -6
This is not just an idea I've had recently, but one that I've been rattling around in my head for probably over a decade now. It comes from when I was in high school, rediscovering older AD&D rule books - using a mishmash of 1st and 2nd edition books, Dragon articles, and whatever else it took to put together the game we wanted. Back then I used to think that there would be a way to find the bits and pieces for the perfect D&D game.
Now, my concept of the perfect D&D game has changed a lot since then, but I think the idea was not too far off target. I have been doing a lot of looking at different rule sets, and I think in general I like my D&D a bit lighter than AD&D, a bit heavier than Basic and Expert. What seems, to me, to strike about the right balance is that kind of inspired blend of rules and influences that seems to have peaked around 1977/1978. You have the full OD&D game with supplements, the first issues of the Strategic Review and The Dragon, the Holmes booklet, the Monster Manual, the first Judges Guild materials, the Arduin booklets.... the list goes on. In that time before the AD&D PHB and DMG, the D&D game was much more something tailored by the individual referee, much less a single unified once-for-all system.
So what I'm looking for are thoughts on this same line. Whenever I find time to actually run a game, the next thing I run will probably be Wilderlands, with the details primarily drawn from the various JG books (Castles, Villages, Temples, Islands). And I'm seeing OD&D/Holmes with Supplements I (but no percentile Strength) and III (but no psionics) as being the "core" rule set, with Holmes along for the ride and the rules clarifications. Ready Ref Sheets play the role of the DMG, and from there it's a matter of filling stuff out. So: where are some interesting places to go from there? I have the PDFs of the runs of SR (all), Dragon (1-250) and White Dwarf (1-100), so that's no issue. I have the first 20 issues of Alarums & Excursions. I've got an extensive collection of TSR modules. And I've got a number of newer retroclone books, supplements and modules. Content is not an issue, I just have to figure out what to include and not to include.
Does anybody else share this philosophy towards OD&D? What do you include? What have you had that hasn't worked for you?
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Post by aldarron on Feb 8, 2012 21:48:52 GMT -6
Probably, you would like the Grey Book, which started as a Holmes expansion, but morphed into AD&D lite.
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Post by coffee on Feb 9, 2012 1:28:20 GMT -6
I think, with that lot, the only other thing you'd need is imagination. And I'm guessing you have that in spades.
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Post by machfront on Feb 9, 2012 3:53:52 GMT -6
So what I'm looking for are thoughts on this same line. Does anybody else share this philosophy towards OD&D? What do you include? What have you had that hasn't worked for you? Man, I love it all. I can and have gone just S&W: WhiteBox + ReadyRefSheets (that thing is so awesome!). I've done B/X + Fiend Folio + Creature Catalog + the "Creature Catalogs" from Dragon + this and that article. I've had RC and 2E 'Complete' books for bashing 'kits' into the game. I've done Holmes + Meepo's Holmes Companion and nothing else whatsoever. 3LBBs and S&W:WB (for a bit of help only) and some bare notes and that's all. It all tastes great to me. Each and every time I look towards doing something new with a D&D rules set, I go through much waffling as to what to use and what to use with it, etc. But these are the kinda problems you want to have. (For years I've said I've always wanted to do a game wherein the Fiend Folio is the only monster and races resource Well...besides humans. Never have though.) I don't think I can say that I've had something that didn't really work. I mean, I got really, really tired of the overkill with the RC, but I don't think that really counts. |
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Post by cadriel on Feb 9, 2012 7:57:30 GMT -6
Probably, you would like the Grey Book, which started as a Holmes expansion, but morphed into AD&D lite. I think the Grey Book is neat but not exactly what I'm looking for - frex, my Cleric charts use increments of 100,000 where the Grey Book uses 50,000 past Patriarch. I cut out things where I don't like them, like Exceptional Strength and minimum # of spells per level (doesn't work with how I like spellbooks). There are lots of little reasons why I don't want to use Grey Book. Also it doesn't quite get the "kitbashed" feel that I want my rules to have. |
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Post by kesher on Feb 9, 2012 10:28:08 GMT -6
I find endless inspiration in the pages of Fight On!In fact, with Mr. Boggs' Champions of Zed in the last two issues, you could actually run an entire campaign with nothing but those 13 issues... That's freakin' awesome... |
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monk
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by monk on Feb 9, 2012 11:13:41 GMT -6
This is right up my alley. When I DM (on a 1-2 month break to play AD&D), I use a rule book that I made from the S&W Word Doc. I cut out much of it, including the spells, and added some mechanics from B/X. The rest is cherry-picked from Holmes and 0e, mostly, and the rule book really contains only the basic mechanics. Character generation is basically B/X, but with the explicit openness to creating your own character class or race-as-class, as indicated in 0e. For a while I resisted doing this, thinking it was way too much work to compile, and that I could just use different rules without putting them together in one volume. I'm really glad I changed my mind, though, because it's awesome to have the rules I want in one pamphlet in a form that feels both complete and very simple. I think your mission is a very worthy one and the results will be a particular flavor of D&D that you'll really enjoy. I highly recommend compiling it as something separate, in it's own volume, while not worrying about getting all the monsters or spells into it. Sorry if that is scattered and not overly coherent...I'm trying to write this quickly during my break at work.  |
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Post by llenlleawg on Feb 9, 2012 15:11:02 GMT -6
Cadriel, what you are describing is, almost perfectly, the books from which I first learned to play the game. Basically, it was the original Holmes set (with Monster & Treasure Assortment and Dungeon Geomorphs), followed by the OD&D supplements and then the AD&D books as they were gradually released. So, until the AD&D PHB came out, you've basically described how I know the game, including issues of Dragon for inspiration.
I never really understood, even when the AD&D books came out, that these were supposed to be used as anything other than slight revisions of the same rules I was already using (e.g. hit dice for fighters, 1st level spells for 1st level clerics, half-orcs and gnomes, precise information on XP for magic items, etc.). I never really changed how I played at all; only the details were different. Plus, I never noticed at the few cons I attended (Origins, Gen Con East) that I was playing any differently than anyone else. I actually think that those who played all of AD&D were, despite Gary's professed reasons for the rule set, few an far between, even at cons. Segments? Weapon vs. armor class? Never used 'em, never missed 'em, never witnessed them used by anyone else.
So, my view had long been, until 2000, that there just was D&D that basically you learned how to play and that the minor variations in the books were just that, minor variations, not really different editions, much less different games. Still, my first love is the set of variants and books you described, so go for it!
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Post by Finarvyn on Feb 9, 2012 15:33:54 GMT -6
The nice thing to me is that you can take pre-2000 D&D, LL, S&W, C&C, DCC, etc, and just pick the parts you like to get the flavor you like.
Personally, I run a very minimalistic game. I ususally don't worry about encumbrance, XP, or other rules where I have to spend a lot of time counting. I grab my monsters from whatever book is handy (AD&D Monster Manual, RC, C&C Monsters & Treasure are my most common) and just run them however the stats suggest. If my AC or HD numbers are wrong by a number or so, who cares?
That's the thing about many of the "clone" games. They start as inspired by a particular edition but then each author seems to add in tweaks they like. As far as I'm concerned, they are pretty much all interchangible.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2012 15:47:55 GMT -6
Personally, I run a very minimalistic game. I agree. I emphasize to players that, within the matrix established by the rules, they have a great deal of freedom. When a player really wants some variant race or class (or whatever) I add it in. |
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Post by stevemitchell on Feb 9, 2012 16:03:30 GMT -6
In the 70s, we played using the OD&D rules, with just a few extra bits added in from the supplements and the Arduin Grimoire. But most of us weren't thrilled by the Vancian magic approach, so we borrowed the magic system from Tunnels & Trolls instead.
Fortunately, the inquisitors from Lake Geneva and Scottsdale never caught us!
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Post by Zenopus on Feb 9, 2012 22:26:41 GMT -6
What seems, to me, to strike about the right balance is that kind of inspired blend of rules and influences that seems to have peaked around 1977/1978. cadriel, in case you missed it there was a thread last fall in the Holmes Forum started by Falconer about this exact time period, which he termed the "Lost Edition" or "5-point alignment era". You might find the discussion there interesting, as well: The Lost Edition |
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Post by Finarvyn on Feb 10, 2012 9:25:15 GMT -6
Personally, I run a very minimalistic game. I agree. I emphasize to players that, within the matrix established by the rules, they have a great deal of freedom. When a player really wants some variant race or class (or whatever) I add it in. And remember that this is basically the way Dave Arneson did it. One player wanted to play a Balrog. Dave found a way to make it happen. Another played a vampire. Dave ended up creating the Cleric class becasue of it. D&D should be about options, within reason, as long as there are enough negatives to balance out the positives. (Avoiding the total min/max character.) |
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Post by cadriel on Feb 10, 2012 11:45:00 GMT -6
cadriel, in case you missed it there was a thread last fall in the Holmes Forum started by Falconer about this exact time period, which he termed the "Lost Edition" or "5-point alignment era". You might find the discussion there interesting, as well: The Lost EditionYeah, I read and enjoyed that thread, it had similar ideas to what I'm thinking of. One thing I'd like to get at, since I don't seem to be the only one drawn to this particular slant on the rules: if you use this style of rules, what has NOT worked for you? What stuff have you tried and discarded, or thrown out and found that your game was the better for it? Heresies and controversies welcome. |
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Post by llenlleawg on Feb 11, 2012 8:39:52 GMT -6
One thing I'd like to get at, since I don't seem to be the only one drawn to this particular slant on the rules: if you use this style of rules, what has NOT worked for you? What stuff have you tried and discarded, or thrown out and found that your game was the better for it? Heresies and controversies welcome. As someone whose first experience of D&D was the "Lost Edition" (which is why I find it funny that it is treated occasionally as hypothetical!), I can't really find anything as such as has not/does not work with it. In fact, it is more or less a Rosetta Stone for D&D from LBB+Greyhawk through 2nd edition AD&D. By that I mean that someone who had LBB and/or Holmes, the supplements, the MM, and some issues of Strategic Review/Dragon (or even just Best of The Dragon, vol. 1) would be able to play using nearly any supplement or product designed for D&D between 1976 and 1999 with very minimal, if any, mathematical adjustment. If there is anything that might be seen as a negative (although I am not sure I would consider it such) is that this style is quite open-ended for adjustment, especially by way of addition. It is robust enough to handle quite odd add-ons and still "work", but this does tend to create a centrifugal force in game experience from table to table. Again, this is not necessarily a problem, although it seems to have been a part of Gary's stated motivation for "pinning things down" in AD&D (more in his mind than in actual play experience, though!), as well as the creation of what came to be quite independent game systems (e.g. Chivalry & Sorcery). For those who want a taste of this and are not interested or unable to acquire the original items making up the "Lost Edition", I would suggest either the "Grey Book" Holmes (I'm not sure of the legality of that document, however), the Complete Swords & Wizardry, or Labyrinth Lord plus Advanced Edition Companion. If you have any of these, you can basically use without any effort most anything of pre-3e D&D. So, I know this is the reverse of what you asked, since you were looking for potential downsides, but apart from someone not liking D&D as such, I am not sure there really are any! |
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