The AD&D Player's Handbook With OD&D

[vladtolenkov]

Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere--I took a look through the threads and didn't notice anything.

Anyway. . . I've recently been re-reading the AD&D PHB, and one thing that occured to me while doing so was just how CLEAR it is as compared to the Dungeon Master's Guide. I love the DMG, but from a purely practical point of view the PHB beats it all to hell.

Specifically, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a player in 1978 before the DMG came out. I'd have snatched it in a second (as clearly many did). As far as PLAYER options go it's great.

So how many of you have run hybrid games like this? Specifically--how usable is it with the rules in OD&D? I'm assuming that the PHB essentially replaces most of the rules in Men & Magic and Greyhawk. It looks like you could almost use it as is although I'm unsure how the OD&D experience system would work with the advancement charts in the PHB.

So in this hybrid game we would use:

The Player's Handbook
Men & Magic (as needed for the combat matrixes etc.)
Monsters & Treasure
The Underground & Wilderness Adventures.

I realize that the Monster Manual was available but I'm going to nix it in the interest of keeping things more on the OD&D side.

[Finarvyn]

Vladtolenkov, you asked an interesting question and one that probably hasn’t been covered here much due to the AD&D spill-over while this is an OD&D-focus board. However, your interest is in the “gray area” era when AD&D was still being formed and OD&D still ruled, and I think it’s worthy of discussion here.

1. I think the first observation is the fact that OD&D plus supplements is practically AD&D, anyway.

2. For anyone who doesn’t know my style I should reiterate that I run OD&D campaigns that are very “loose” with the rules. Rules Lawyers need not bother to apply, because my interpretation may not always agree with the letter of the law but hopefully follows the spirit of OD&D.

3. You wanted to ignore the Monster Manual as being non-OD&D-like, but as it came out first it’s worth commenting upon as well. Back “in the day” a bunch of us went to GenCon and bought this fancy hardback book of monsters. We used it immediately. We simply used any information that we liked (hit dice, damage, armor class) and ignored anything that we didn’t understand or didn’t fit our concept of the game. Sure, some of the AC numbers were off slightly but I’m not certain that we even noticed, or if we did we didn’t care much.

4. At the time, most players seemed to accept that AD&D was the “official” rules set. This was a byproduct of Dragon magazine and experiences at GenCon. In the same way that the box evolved into the supplements, it was assumed by many that OD&D was “supposed” to evolve into AD&D. Much of the looking-back (at least in our group) happened later on.

--------------------

Onto the Player’s Handbook question: As mentioned before, the PH is quite similar in content to Men & Magic plus supplements, and our gaming group used this in various ways.

One of our DM’s decided to scrap the OD&D model entirely and use class, race, and spell information from AD&D. As quickly as possible, this guy also bought the Dungeon Master’s Guide and segued into AD&D. As it turns out he was more of a Rules Lawyer type, and having additional structure to his rules actually made him a lot happier.

One of our DM’s decided to house-rule everything and built up his own rules. He decided to run something a lot like AD&D, but with some elements of Rune Quest brought in. He abandoned the OD&D model as AD&D appeared.

I took a different approach. I mostly stuck to the OD&D model because my Judges Guild stuff was written that way. When I acquired AD&D stuff I just converted it on the fly. My game became more of a blend of OD&D with AD&D, but more slanted towards OD&D in philosophy. If there wasn’t a rule for it in OD&D I often would follow AD&D’s lead, but if both systems had a rule I tended to follow the ones given in OD&D. I’m more interested in rules simplicity so I like OD&D better, but as you said the rules are often more clear in AD&D so I would read those books to get a better feel as to how to run my OD&D game.

Does that help any?

[Deleted]

Dec 22, 2008 8:54:14 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

My game became more of a blend of OD&D with AD&D, but more slanted towards OD&D in philosophy.

Same here--gotta keep it simple.

Even though I'm not currently running an OD&D campaign, I still use my 1E PH as a reference guide in my low-magic Moldvay game. In fact, I find the PH as one of the most useful reference books I have. If someone wants to dualclass/multiclass, great; interested in researching a spell not normally available IMC, no problem--it's real clear & concise like that.

When using the PH as reference, I just make sure to keep it as such. I just don't have the time to devote to running a full-blown 1E campaign, which is why I love OD&D & Classic D&D, with bit thrown in from this source or that--I love to tinker with rules.

I guess my personal gaming style is best defined as "AD&D Really-Lite" or "Advanced-Basic D&D", if that makes any sense...

[geoffrey]

Dec 22, 2008 5:05:49 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

I've recently been re-reading the AD&D PHB, and one thing that occured to me while doing so was just how CLEAR it is as compared to the Dungeon Master's Guide. I love the DMG, but from a purely practical point of view the PHB beats it all to hell.

Good observation.

The PHB is an awesomely written and organized book. Very little extraneous is therein, and most such stuff is safely relegated to the appendices.

The DMG, on the other hand, is clearly an example of Gary losing control of the book. There is just SO MUCH stuff therein that the book's organization gets byzantine.

It's also interesting that the PHB has a unified artistic look. ALL the art therein is by Sutherland or by Trampier. The DMG, on the other hand, has a plethora of different artists and styles. IMO, the PHB has the better of it. To me, Sutherland's and Trampier's art defines the look of AD&D. I wish the DMG was also illustrated solely by those two.

[coffee]

Dec 22, 2008 9:37:28 GMT -6 @oltekos said:

Dec 22, 2008 8:54:14 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

My game became more of a blend of OD&D with AD&D, but more slanted towards OD&D in philosophy.

Same here--gotta keep it simple.

Even though I'm not currently running an OD&D campaign, I still use my 1E PH as a reference guide in my low-magic Moldvay game. In fact, I find the PH as one of the most useful reference books I have. If someone wants to dualclass/multiclass, great; interested in researching a spell not normally available IMC, no problem--it's real clear & concise like that.

When using the PH as reference, I just make sure to keep it as such. I just don't have the time to devote to running a full-blown 1E campaign, which is why I love OD&D & Classic D&D, with bit thrown in from this source or that--I love to tinker with rules.

I guess my personal gaming style is best defined as "AD&D Really-Lite" or "Advanced-Basic D&D", if that makes any sense...

Have an exalt for this. You've made a really good point (as have the previous posters): Any rule book is a reference. It's what you do with it, how you choose to use it, in your own world, that matters.

That's the way the game was meant to be played, from all that I've seen and heard. I know it's the way I have the most fun with, and that after all is the point.

[vladtolenkov]

I guess the reason this has been on my mind is that I've been thinking how to sand AD&D down so that it still has the a lot of the options of AD&D (i.e. spells etc.) but is simpler to run. OD&D with supplements is the other way to go I suppose, but the PHB is so coherent that I thought using just IT with the brown books might be what I was after.

[Finarvyn]

A quick guide for this is to simply trim out the detail stuff. House rule it if you must. For example:

* You don't need complex initiative systems. A quick die roll, go in order high to low. Get rid of casting time and let spells happen right away.

* You don't need spell components. Just forget 'em, even if you like the longer spell lists from AD&D.

* Feel free to thin out the equipment list. You don't need 30 types of armor or so many weapon types. Use 'em if you like, but I like to trim that stuff out.

* AD&D has more spell levels. If you cut off level progression to the 10-12 range, you only need spells in the 5-6 spell level range. Details like this tend to take some of the "weight" off of a campaign, in my opinion.

* AD&D adds details like damage against large creatures, versus damage against small/medium creatures. You don't really need all of that stuff.

Basically, get rid of some of the "do you need this?" stuff and you'll probably end up with a more OD&D-like rules set. It would keep things more soft and up to the DM instead of hard and written out in detail in the rulebook.

It would be interesting to start with AD&D and trim it down to a more OD&D-like doccument (kind of like C&C and others have been doing for the 3E SRD to obtain a lighter rules version of that game).

If anyone has done this, maybe they will share?

[vladtolenkov]

Great suggestions!

Running the spells like OD&D/Basic D&D solves lots of things (besides that was how I ran them when I was younger and didn't always understand what the rules were).

A middle ground approach I suppose might be to use Philotomy's spell casting rules.

[Finarvyn]

Thanks. I always thought that AD&D was (1) well written, (2) chock full of ideas, and (3) a great inspiration for gaming. It also was very rules heavy, in my opinion. So what I did was simply to ignore the stuff I didn't like as much and when in doubt default to OD&D. It's worked pretty well for me!

By the way, that's also how I make use of 3E sourcebooks and such. Of course, when you thin that stuff out you get something similar to C&C..... :-)

[coffee]

Dec 23, 2008 18:35:59 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Thanks. I always thought that AD&D was (1) well written, (2) chock full of ideas, and (3) a great inspiration for gaming. It also was very rules heavy, in my opinion. So what I did was simply to ignore the stuff I didn't like as much and when in doubt default to OD&D. It's worked pretty well for me!

By the way, that's also how I make use of 3E sourcebooks and such. Of course, when you thin that stuff out you get something similar to C&C..... :-)

Ah, if only everybody was so enlightened!

[Falconer]

Where were you guys when I started a thread just like this just a few days ago:
odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=othereditions&action=display&thread=1669

Can we combine them?

[vladtolenkov]

Sorry I missed that. . .



If they can be combined that would be cool with me.

[Finarvyn]

That would be cool with me as well, except that I don't think that Proboards gives me that option. I'll look again, but in the meantime we can just chat twice as much and spread it over both threads. :-)

[ffilz]

There is also some coverage of this topic here: Topic: Time period between PHB&DMG. How did you cope?

Frank

[codeman123]

Actually it's weird that this conversation has come up. My current campaign i am using is a AD&D game. My friends asked me what i wanted to run and i said OD&D of coursed the jeered and rolled their eyes as usual. Then one of my friends told me he really wanted to play in a AD&D game so i said ok but you can tell that OD&D has really influenced my gaming style even with OD&D and as Fiv was saying i just trimmed off all the fat. I got rid of weapon prof., Used one type of damage for each weapon and basically slimmed down alot of the rules where now it's closer to a OD&D with the supplements. My players dont really seem to notice all thats missing and they are having alot of fun. But in reality i still like just 3lbb better but whatever AD&D is cool too..

[Mr. Darke]

I'll be honest, I do yoink spells and monsters from AD&D/C&C for my game. But they are trimmed down quite a bit and I use the simplest version I can make for the game. My game is still 90% OD&D/S&W though. A good gamer never refuses to look at a reference.

[coffee]

That's exactly it, Julian; none of these books is holy writ, they're all resources.

And that's the way it ought to be.

[fitz]

Some nostalgic ramblings here: I didn't start roleplaying at all until 1981, and it wasn't until then that AD&D started to turn up in book shops here in New Zealand; I don't recall seeing or hearing anything about D&D before that locally, though I had seen some fairly mysterious (and intriguing) ads for it in Military Modelling and Omni magazines in the late '70s. A friend of mine had obtained a tatty semi-complete photocopy of the Monster Manual a couple of years before, and not having access to anything else, extrapolated how he thought a roleplaying game should work from that. When the Player's Handbook finally turned up it was a real revelation to us, and we played constantly -- I'm pretty sure that AD&D was a significant factor in my failing my first year of university

Maybe it was our wargaming background, but in our misguided youthfulness we craved RULES for everything; I guess we wanted to be told what to do rather than having to take responsibility for the game ourselves, and we transferred our loyalties to what was then Champions and later became the Hero System. I liked its flexibiltiy and precision, but I always craved the D&D ambience, and when D&D3e came out I took to it with enthusiasm. It seemed to me at the time that it combined much of what I liked about the Hero System with the D&D milieu, and we played it for a couple of years before becoming frustrated with its strait-jacket aspect and went back to Hero. I appreciate the Hero System a lot for its ability to define almost anything in game terms, but it does have these problems: (i) the ability to define anything tends to mean you have to define everything, and (2) the generic nature of the system, plus its hangovers from its genesis as a superhero game makes it harder than it should be to maintain suspension of disbelief when playing. Hearing a player say he's going to use his 12d6 energy blast just isn't as inspiring, or just plain fun, as hearing the player say he's going to cast "Nolzeduk's Teleambratic Fist".

I've just been introduced to OD&D (via Swords & Wizardry) in the last couple of months, and it has immediately captured my interest. I've only GM'd one small scenario ( a TPK, as it turned out) but I loved it. It was incredibly easy to prepare for and to run, character creation took no time at all, and the game ran very smoothly in spite of the fact that none of us had played OD&D before at all (though all of us had played AD&D waaaay back in the day). There were a few things that I noted, that I've changed or added for my own house rules, but overall it was just great.

Now I've formally given notice to our group that I'll be changing my campaign over to my house-ruled version of S&W.

Why do I like it? Because it is so easy. Because I just don't need, or want the firm rules-based direction I craved when I was much younger. Because it provides me with a stable framework, within which I can move freely. Because it makes roleplaying, and especially GMing fun again, when it had become a grinding chore.

That's the most imortant thing I think; because it's just more fun.

[coffee]

May 20, 2009 6:30:50 GMT -6 fitz said:

Because it makes roleplaying, and especially GMing fun again, when it had become a grinding chore.

That's the most imortant thing I think; because it's just more fun.

Got it in one.

I've had 3E games (not all, but some) where the playing was a grinding chore; I can't imagine the DMing was any easier.

Not so with OD&D.