I'll be the only OD&D DM in Argentina's D&D day...

[Zulgyan]

...so wish me luck!

Advice is very well welcomed too!

[Zulgyan]

If someone can mail me an OD&D cheatsheet or reference sheets, that would be most useful

[calithena]

Hi, Zulgyan - what sort of 'cheat sheets' would you need?

It's a game of imagination, make things up that you think will be fun for you and the players. Before you get to the table AND at the table.

Good luck.

[foster1941]

You can find a link to a very good pdf facsimile of the original D&D character sheet in the first post of this thread. You can find a not-quite-as-good (but still good enough IMO) facsimile of the original game reference sheet here. For true retro-appeal, be sure to print them both out on orange paper.

Advice for running the game: don't get hung up on the rules (or allow the players to) and keep it as fast-moving as possible. Don't waste a lot of time setting up backstory or establishing a plot, just get the players right into the middle of the action ASAP and don't let up until the session ends.

EDIT: Duh! You said cheat sheets or reference sheets -- I read that as character sheets or reference sheets. For OD&D, the only cheatsheet you really need is something with the combat and saving throw tables. If your ruleset has the Reference Sheets one of them already has exactly this. If not, it should still be easy enough to photocopy or cut & paste vol. I p. 19 and vol. I p. 20 onto a single sheet.

[Zulgyan]

Hi, Zulgyan - what sort of 'cheat sheets' would you need?

One with the combat tables, the reaction tables, loyalty tables, and other useful ones.

Thanks guys for the support.

[Zulgyan]

Hey guys, which kind and age of dragon would make a good encounter for six 3rd level PCs?

[foster1941]

Considering that 3rd level characters, even at full health, are likely only to have ~10 hp (more for fighters, less for mages) and dragons do damage equal to their hp with their breath weapons (save for 1/2, usable 3x a day), any dragon with more than 15 or so hp is pretty much guaranteed to wipe out the party. Assuming you don't want that to happen, I'd say a small sub-adult white dragon (5 HD, 15hp) is probably about the highest you should go. If the party is likely to get the drop on it and avoid its breath weapon you might be able to go as high as a small sub-adult black dragon (6 HD, 18hp) but that would be pushing it and you'd be very likely to end up with several dead characters (unless they can manage to talk their way out of fighting it...). Younger dragons of larger sizes or tougher types could also be used (e.g. small young green dragon: 7 HD, 14hp; small very young red dragon: 9 HD, 9hp), but vol. II says they don't normally have any treasure, and I assume if you're making the party fight a dragon you'll want to at least let them get a little treasure out of it.

Remember also that even if they manage to avoid the breath weapon a dragon is a very tough combat opponent for low-level characters -- AC2 means they'll have a hard time hitting it (17+), whereas 5 or 6 HD means it'll have a pretty easy time hitting them with its bite (12+ to hit AC2).

[Zulgyan]

Hmmmm... maybe I'll go with 4th level characters, but I don't want to make things to complex...

Thanks for the tips foster!

[Rhuvein]

Yes, good luck and have fun. And let us know how the game was! ;D

[Zulgyan]

Here's my dungeon map so far...

[Rhuvein]

zulgyan said:

Here's my dungeon map so far...

Hehe, great real time action map!! Well done.

So did you use a published module or your own creation?

[korgoth]

How did it go?

[Zulgyan]

We had a total blast! ;D

I'll tell you guys about it later, I'm very tired right now!

[tgamemaster1975]

I look forward to hearing about your game. I will be checking back for that.

[tgamemaster1975]

Hey Zulgyan, how about letting us in on how things went. Any good stories to tell?

[ant]

Yeah, still keen to hear a rundown of how it went!

[crimhthanthegreat]

zulgyan said:

We had a total blast! ;D

I'll tell you guys about it later, I'm very tired right now!

Zulgyan, I also would like to know how things went plus, it would be great to hear about gaming in Argentina.

[Zulgyan]

Ok, let's go!

First of all, the D&D gaming day in Argentina is quite different from USA. It is not held in gaming stores, because we got few of them and because they are small and don't have enough space for setting up some gaming tables. So, what we do is we call for a great gathering in the library of one of our public universities. About 300 people attend to the event (there are much more gamers, but that is the average attendance to the D&D day). This is in "Buenos Aires City". In the "Rosario" city something similar is done, though much smaller. Other cities don't do nothing I think, or it's very small.

You may not know that D&D books were first sold locally only since AD&D 2nd edition. Before that, no D&D books where sold in Argentina. That's because the first books to be translated to Spanish were the AD&D 2nd edition books. Also, you could get the Menzter basic and expert, but that was a rare find in any local comic store. So most people have played only AD&D 2nd Edition. And most have done it since the black-books because it's since then that books started arriving Argentina more massively. Before that, the only way to get them was through mail, and without the Internet, it was not that easy as today.

(People in Argentina, unlike Spain, usually prefer the English version of the books, because translations usually suck)

So, in Argentina people usually have no idea of what came before AD&D 2nd edition. Finding someone who has played 1st edition is extremely rare. I'm a lucky guy, cause my brother lived for about 8 years in USA, and he became a gamer and bought many AD&D 1e books and would mail them to me to Argentina.

So, you may realize that in Argentina old-school is almost "non-existant". I'm know here from promoting old-school and I'm like a defacto leader of the old-school movement. I've always been interested in old-school D&D, and I have been buying used books through e-bay, amazon and NKG, and I've got a quite complete collection of the most important books of every edition now.

So, in Argentina the most played game by far is D&D 3.5. Very few play AD&D 2nd edition. AD&D is usually hated and considered trash. I've seen only one guy who plays Mentzer. I have never meet anyone who plays AD&D 1e or older versions of the game.

So..... from about 40 dungeon masters on Argentina's D&D day, all were running D&D 3.5, about 3 o 4 were running AD&D 2e, 1 was running Mentzer Basic and 1 (me) was running OD&D ;D

Ok, I'll continue with my report later!

[Zulgyan]

Here's a pic from my table. I'm the guy standing with it's hand raised into the air.

[Zulgyan]

rhuvein said:

zulgyan said:

Here's my dungeon map so far...

Hehe, great real time action map!! Well done.

So did you use a published module or your own creation?

My own creation, the old-school way!

Here's an updated pic of the dungeon I made up for the event.

[coffee]

Love what you've shared with us so far.

Also, I love your DM screen and the groovy green old school character sheets! Can't wait to hear more.

(Oh, and I'm totally going to swipe your dungeon map...)

[Zulgyan]

Hey guys, are you getting my barbaric English OK??

[foster1941]

Love the group photo. Argentinian gamers look "cooler" than American gamers (or maybe just the Argentinian gamers who chose to play OD&D...) -- that group looks like they could be a rock band. Also, I hope those book covers on your DM screen are facsimiles and that you didn't chop actual OD&D books apart to make that screen!

[Zulgyan]

LOL, no! ;D I printed the covers from the PDF versions you get at RPGNow in color, made some cutting with my scissors, and sticked them to my homemade screen.

Getting the OD&D books is much more expensive for an Argentinian than for an American! ;D

[Zulgyan]

foster1941 said:

You can find a link to a very good pdf facsimile of the original D&D character sheet in the first post of this thread. You can find a not-quite-as-good (but still good enough IMO) facsimile of the original game reference sheet here. For true retro-appeal, be sure to print them both out on orange paper.

Advice for running the game: don't get hung up on the rules (or allow the players to) and keep it as fast-moving as possible. Don't waste a lot of time setting up backstory or establishing a plot, just get the players right into the middle of the action ASAP and don't let up until the session ends.

EDIT: Duh! You said cheat sheets or reference sheets -- I read that as character sheets or reference sheets. For OD&D, the only cheatsheet you really need is something with the combat and saving throw tables. If your ruleset has the Reference Sheets one of them already has exactly this. If not, it should still be easy enough to photocopy or cut & paste vol. I p. 19 and vol. I p. 20 onto a single sheet.

foster1941, you can note that these sheets you suggested were used in my game. They were printed in color pages as you suggested. Couldn't find orange paper in time, so I used green, light-blue and yellow.

Thanks!

[foster1941]

Yeah, I noticed that in the pic, and it made me smile. TSR apparently used green as well as orange for the original sheets in 75-76, so you were still old-school-correct

[Zulgyan]

Ok, I'll tell you more about my OD&D at Argentina's D&D day...

I noticed that all the rest of the DMs at the event had prepared a "story" (or were using any of the 2 official very rail-road adventures the organizers had written for the event), whereas I simply had prepared a "dungeon", and would let the story build up itself, based on what happened during the game, it's random elements and the player's actions.

I also noticed that all other DMs were offering pre-generated characters, because in D&D 3.5 just creating (or "building" as they say) a character would suck up 3/4 or all of the time of the 6-8 hour event, with no time left to play.
I instead, wanted my players to experience how characters were made in OD&D.

So, I started with everyone rolling for their stats, IN ORDER, which was a surprise to most of them, but they were really enjoying it, and laughing at the weird results. They really had a great attitude towards the game, and were not there to complain or bash OD&D or old-school gaming, but really trying to get into the experience I was humbly trying to offer. And did not know any of my players, and I asked them for curiosity which was their gaming experience. Two of them had been playing since AD&D 2nd edition, and where now playing D&D 3.5 in a "Necromancer Games" style. They did appreciate old-school and when they saw my OD&D table, they rushed in, because they really wanted to try it and see what it was about.
The other 3 players were relatively new to the hobby, and only knew and played D&D 3.5. When they arrived to the event they wanted to try something "new" to them, so the singed in for my table. They had a great attitude at my table, and really got into the spirit OD&D as best as they could, and avoided most d20isms while playing. They really enjoyed it and had lots of fun, and congratulated me at the end of the game.

Ok, so everyone was already having great fun, just rolling for their characters. Some had rolled very poorly, but I told them that in OD&D stats were not so important for their survivability as in later versions of the game, and that modifiers were minimal (even more so when XP bonuses would not be an issue as we were running a one-shot). I told them to rely on their wits rather than the numbers in their sheets. "Cool, this looks challenging and fun, I hope that my 10 wisdom cleric fares well in your dungeon!!".
Some of them were also worried for not having any idea about the rules, but I answered: "I'll be in charge of rules and rulings, don't worry, just describe what is your character doing, and I'll tell you what happens". I also told them that I was going to run the game as much BTB as possible, but that means that many ad hoc rulings will be made. I told them not to be afraid about trying just anything they wanted to do. If it was not covered by the rules, I would make something up in a fair and fun manner, as best as I could. I told them to trust the DM. That my goal was to make them have fun!

I then explained the basics of the 3 original classes and 4 races, so as to let them choose. I also explained which spells they had available if they were M-Us or clerics: "Your books, yes, clerics use books too in this game, contain every spell on those lists" - "Hey, no magic missile?" - "No, direct damage spells are reserved for 5th level and higher spell casters, you'll have to use what you got with intelligence and creativity, and I assure you'll be more powerful than a missile throwing wizard. Take a second to read those spell descriptions and start thinking about their great potential!".

I also told them to forget about "spot", "listen", "search", "move silently" and "hide" checks. "Everything will be handled in a descriptive manner, just tell me what are you doing, as best as you can, and I'll tell you what the results are". They really got into this "descriptive" way of handling things, and at the end of the game they told me it had been one of the most enjoyable and fascinating aspects of the game. They told me that the game had actually acquired more richness by reducing dice-rolls and pumping up imagination! They were really happy for having played OD&D.

So, I made everyone start at 4th level, rolling for hit-dice as in the original books (d6 based). I told them they could get any of the stuff in the equipment list, since it could be assumed that 4th level character could have enough treasure for it. I also gave each character a single potion of healing.

The party turned out as follows:

* A lawful fighting men who became the natural leader of the party. As he had a high charisma of 15, I gave him 2 loyal servants, ordinary men with leather armor, shield and spears. I thought that the handling of underlings would be another OD&D game aspect to show in play, when in later editions, characters usually never have people under their command (be it henchmen, hirelings, followers or whatever). They rest of the characters had rolled crappy CHA, but I would had given them servants if they had rolled higher. He played his character in a very "Norse-like" way. I bet you can guess who played this character by looking at the group pic.
* A neutral elven fighting-woman
* A neutral elven magic user, later to be turned into a female with a trap ;D
*A lawful cleric
*A chaotic cleric

No one decided to take dwarf or hobbit.

Creating the characters and explaining the basics took about an hour. Meanwhile, other tables were still struggling through their first encounter.

I will continue later with the tale of this merry band!! ;D

[Zulgyan]

This is Argentina's biggest and most important RPG forum by far. It's called De Rol:
www.derol.com.ar/
www.derol.com.ar/foro/index.php

De Rol was the organizer of the event.

I hope you guys are not having hard time getting my English.

[coffee]

Your English would probably make the average High School teacher cry, but your meaning comes through quite clearly to me.

Your English is actually better than that of some Americans I know!

[Zulgyan]

LOL, ok.

What do you think about my game so far? I hope I can get feedback from you guys, since I'm quite new to OD&D. I'm very interested in the "OD&D way" which I'm finding fascinating, and I want to learn as much as possible. Any comments are well received.