Was AD&D Gygax's definitive take on fantasy RPGing

[codeman123]

I remember reading an old article in dragon or some such magazine that had an interview with Gary before he left TSR in the article he describes his plan for 2nd edition to some extent. That article was floating around somewhere online..

[Deleted]

Well, if Gygax wanted to make a 2nd edition, then AD&D can't be his definitive RPG, right?

[aldarron]

Unearthed Arcana was the core of Gygax's material for 2nd edition, but there were other classes and such in the brew. It was merely and expansion/reorganization effort, not a rewrite of the rules. These fellows are attempting to bring it to complestion via retroclone:
www.adventuresdarkanddeep.com/

Frankly, while its mildly interesting (to me) I don't need even more bigger (A)D&D. Although it has yet to be written, the "4th book" dealing with sieges and naval warfare and such might just be the most useful.

[Finarvyn]

Unfortunately, once Gary and TSR parted ways he was unable to write games that looked too much like OD&D/AD&D, so we'll never really know if he liked some of the stuff he wrote later or if it was just the only way he could stay active in the hobby.

I've never found Lejendary Adventures to be as awesome as OD&D, although to be fair I never found Dave's Adventures in Fantasy to be as awesome, either. It's possible that they just got it right the first time.

[cooper]

May 22, 2011 8:41:33 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I've never found Lejendary Adventures to be as awesome as OD&D, although to be fair I never found Dave's Adventures in Fantasy to be as awesome, either. It's possible that they just got it right the first time.

I think the reason is that when they were working together with d&d they had a strong foundational rule system from CHAINMAIL to work with. When they started doing their own things, they had no kind of "physics engine" to ground them, so their rules were overly elaborate and lacked a good "code".

I think it would be awesome for people to undertake a challege of starting with a free wargame simulating any era and write an RPG based off of it's rules.

[murquhart72]

One of my biggest regrets was a deal Gary and I had to meet one day and I would run a game of OD&D for him, to show what I had done with it and see what he thought. In return, he would run a game of LA for me, in hopes of getting me more interested (I own the game, but never really got into it).
He died before we could finalize plans

[darien]

May 22, 2011 12:30:51 GMT -6 cooper said:

May 22, 2011 8:41:33 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I've never found Lejendary Adventures to be as awesome as OD&D, although to be fair I never found Dave's Adventures in Fantasy to be as awesome, either. It's possible that they just got it right the first time.

I think the reason is that when they were working together with d&d they had a strong foundational rule system from CHAINMAIL to work with. When they started doing their own things, they had no kind of "physics engine" to ground them, so their rules were overly elaborate and lacked a good "code".

I think it would be awesome for people to undertake a challege of starting with a free wargame simulating any era and write an RPG based off of it's rules.

Challenge accepted. I would love to create my own RPG in the old-school style, and this may be a way to do so.

[Starbeard]

Jul 30, 2017 13:43:45 GMT -6 darien said:

May 22, 2011 12:30:51 GMT -6 cooper said:

I think the reason is that when they were working together with d&d they had a strong foundational rule system from CHAINMAIL to work with. When they started doing their own things, they had no kind of "physics engine" to ground them, so their rules were overly elaborate and lacked a good "code".

I think it would be awesome for people to undertake a challege of starting with a free wargame simulating any era and write an RPG based off of it's rules.

Challenge accepted. I would love to create my own RPG in the old-school style, and this may be a way to do so.

Great idea! I've long had pipe dreams about drafting up rules for roleplaying 18th-century and Napoleonic ImagiNations wargame campaigns, using Charles Grant's The War Game and maybe his Wargame Campaigns as its "Chainmail" foundation. Basically, a conceptual exercise that asks, "What if the Society of Ancients had invented roleplaying games instead?"

[darien]

I may create either a medieval fantasy RPG using the free rules system "One Man One Knight" by Thor Sheil as a base, or a Civil War RPG using Guidon Games' Hardtack as a base (which Gary Gygax also worked on, alongside Lou Zocchi and Don Lowry).