What Else Do I Need?

[trollman]

Having recently "discovered" OD&D (from a Basic/1E background), I'm trying to decide what my "must haves" are.

So far, I have bought the pdfs for White Box OD&D, and downloaded the Blackmoor supplement (available for free). I'm considering buying the pdf for the Greyhawk supplement, and to a lesser degree, Chainmail.

Are there any other supplements that are must have? Can I get hard copies of the supplements for decent prices (relative to buying the pdfs)?

Can anyone give me a break down of the contents of the other books?

Thanks!

[foster1941]

Really, you don't need anything else at all. That's one of the beautiful things about Original D&D. However, that said:

Chainmail is, I would say, the closest to a "must have" -- it's the pre-history of the game (and is referenced numerous times in the OD&D rules) and it's a more detailed and tactical combat system for those who want such a thing; even if you wind up not using it in your game I think it's worth taking a look at nonetheless

Greyhawk is, essentially, all the rules from later editions of A/D&D you're surprised aren't in the original set -- thieves and half-elves, AC bonus for high Dex and to hit and damage bonues for high Str, variable hit die types by class, variable damage by weapon type, spells like magic missile and silence, 15' radius, monsters like carrion crawlers, owl bears, rust monsters and gelatinous cubes, and magic items like vorpal swords, bags of devouring, rods of cancellation, portable holes, and the Deck of Many Things. Plus it's got a short section at the end of suggested tricks and traps for dungeons, most of which are lifted straight out of the original Greyhawk Castle. If you're running a dungeon-centric campaign these pages alone are probably worth the price of the book. Otherwise there's a lot of stuff in here to mix and match; if you use all of it your game will end up feeling a lot like AD&D (in which case why not just play AD&D?).

Eldritch Wizardry introduces druids, psionics, an alternative (and very complicated) initiative system for combat, psionic monsters (cerebral parasite, intellect devourer, etc.), demons (type I-VI + Orcus and Demogorgon), and the various artifacts and relics that were later included in the AD&D DMG (Heward's Mystical Organ, Machine of Lum the Mad, Mighty Servant of Leuk-o, Queen Ehlissa's Marvelous Nightingale, Ring of Gaxx, Rod of Seven Parts, Hand and Eye of Vecna, etc.). This was, I think, TSR's attempt to keep up with some of the more high-powered and "gonzo" stuff that was being developed by third parties (most famously Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire) but IMO it wasn't really successful. This book is more highly recommended if you're an AD&D fan looking for the history and development of the game than if you're looking for stuff to actually use in an OD&D campaign.

Gods Demi-gods & Heroes is a bunch of combat stats for gods and heroes from various real world (Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Celtic, Norse, Finnish, Central American, Chinese) and fictional (Hyboria, Melnibone) pantheons. The latter sections are kinda cool (especially the Hyboria section since it wasn't reprinted in AD&D's Deities & Demigods), the former mainly worthless (unless you want to have your party fight Minions of Set, or to see if your badass high level fighter can really take out Odin).

Swords & Spells is billed as a revised version of Chainmail fully integrating D&D, but it's actually a different system (based on math calculations instead of die-rolling) that pretty much sucks. There are some useful references -- a clearer statement of the order of activity in a combat round than you'll find elsewhere, and a nice index of spells with range, duration, and area of effect -- but those don't really justify the price of the book.

If you can get a copy, Best of The Dragon vol. I is loaded with good stuff published from 1975-78, including lots of designer's notes from Gygax explaining stuff like the intent behind the magic system, alignments, how fast characters should advance, the other planes, etc., advice for running and playing the game (with a heavy focus on dungeon-designing), rules additions and variants (including new classes rangers, illusionists, bards, and witches (the later an uber-powerful NPC-only class) and the solo dungeon adventuring rules that later became the random dungeon design rules in the AD&D DMG), and even a smattering of joke/humor articles (which are all severely dated but give a great feel of "gamer culture" in the 70s -- a lot more drug references than you'd find in later years. Cheaper than buying either actual hardcopies of the early issues or the out-of-print Dragon CD-ROM collection.

Outside of TSR there's some good stuff: Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets (collection of charts & tables, variant rules additions, and play aids) is hugely useful and entertaining, and First Fantasy Campaign (essentially Dave Arneson's notebooks describing the Blackmoor campaign, what the TSR Blackmoor supplement should've been) is IMO perhaps the richest and most inspiring supplement ever published for D&D. The collection of issues 1-6 of The Dungeoneer (a fanzine by Paul Jaquays that was distributed by JG) has lots of good stuff -- some rules additions, a bunch of new monsters, some fiction, and several full adventures (including a couple really really good ones!). If you want more adventure-type stuff, City State of the Invincible Overlord, Tegel Manor, and The Caverns of Thracia are all first-rate.

Chaosium's All the World's Monsters vol. 1-3 are a lot of fun -- tons of new monsters, some good, some bad, that give a great feel of 70s-era fan culture before TSR attempted to force everything to conform to a single creative vision with AD&D. Plus, as an added bonus, vol. 2 includes Steve Perrin's D&D combat house-rules ("The Perrin Conventions") which are both highly usable (better organized and explained than the actual D&D combat rules) and are of historical interest as a direct predecessor of the RuneQuest system.

The aforementioned Arduin Grimoire by Dave Hargrave is well worth seeking out -- a high-powered completely gonzo take on D&D that Gygax and TSR hated, and which will seriously screw up the balance of your campaign if you allow it in as-is, but which is bursting with amateur enthusiasm that embodies the spirit of OD&D. OD&D isn't about conforming to someone else's predigested vision, it's about stretching your creativity and doing your own thing, and in that regard messy and amateurish but creative and enthusiastic products like this and First Fantasy Campaign are much more suitable -- as models and inspiration for doing it yourself, not things to pull of the shelf and play -- than the more "polished" products that became the norm in later eras and sucked all the life and passion out of the hobby.

There's plenty more even more obscure third-party stuff, but I'll leave the recommendations there to folks more familiar with it than I.

[dwayanu]

I wouldn't say you really need anything more, and any B/X material you have should be quite usable.

Any hard copies of the original TSR supplements are likely to be quite pricey collector's items; if you bought them as a collector, you'd probably want PDFs to take the wear and tear.

Judges Guild products sometimes turn up for a pittance at garage sales and used-book shops.

In PDF, the first pick is certainly Supplement I: Greyhawk.

The first 17 pp. or so of the main text covers rules additions and amendments familiar from later editions (especially AD&D):
paladins and thieves;
more details and expanded options for dwarves, elves and halflings;
half-elves;
new charts for strength, intelligence (limiting MUs) and constitution bonuses, and a dexterity bonus to AC for fighters;
a new hit dice system;
spells-castable tables for high-level characters;
new (generally lower) XP awards for slain monsters;
weapon versus armor modifiers to hit, and variable damage by weapon;
attacks (sometimes multiple) and damage, by monster type;
notes on loyalty of, and XP for, NPCs;
revised treatment of shields.

Next is the section on spells. This includes some clarifications or amendments of old ones, plus new ones. MUs get spell levels 7-9, clerics 6 and 7.

About halfway through the book now, we get to what I personally find more useful. There are 31 new monsters, and many new magic items. You also get revised encounter and treasure tables incorporating the additions.

The finishing touch is three pages of "tricks and traps."

My copy's last page is one of "corrections or additions" that is not to be missed (as it easily might, coming after two pages of Greg Bell illos and an advert for The Strategic Review). That's where the homunculus and golems get described.

[dwayanu]

I see that Foster posted while I was typing, and I reckon he's right on the mark. Except maybe ...

I actually use Greyhawk (as a source for monsters and magic items) quite often. It's been years ere last I used Chainmail, apart from the nifty little jousting game included.

Now, one reason I use the supplement is that it fits in a coat pocket along with the original three booklets. If you already have B/X, or some other source, then you'll find little (maybe nothing) "new" in it.

In that case, you may indeed find Chainmail the "must-have" item -- if only for the historical perspective. Or First Fantasy Campaign -- another work I never actually used much -- might trump it.

Or Best of the Dragon, Volume I -- to which I refer often for inspiration.

[philotomy]

I'll echo what others have said, in regards to what you need. You've really already got everything you need; the other stuff is just inspiration and such. Foster's comprehensive post covered the Supplements, already, so I won't repeat that.

In addition to Best of the Dragon, Volume I, I've also found Volume II to be interesting (especially Gary's articles about the game, more so than rules/additions). I think the original Empire of the Petal Throne is a cool source of inspiration, both for rules and for setting. I find the Monster & Treasure Assortments useful when working on dungeons; I don't really use the stats (they include Supplement I rules I don't use), but more as a guideline for the game assumptions about encounters and treasures at a given level. I talk about some of this in my musing on "essentials," as well as mentioning most of the items already discussed, earlier in the thread.

[dwayanu]

A Best of the Sorcerers' Scrolls (Gygax & Kuntz) would be a compilation I'd love to see! I regret having missed the Dragon CD when it was "in print."

I have made a lot of use of the Ready Ref Sheets (especially of the monster summary sheet), somewhat less of the M&T Assortments and the Geomorphs. I use the spell summary from Swords & Spells to fill in data "missing" from D&D descriptions.

Lest we forget (perhaps because it's billed as "AD&D"), how about The World of Greyhawk? Unlike FFC, it's not exactly the original setup -- but it was (in my neighborhood, anyhow) a "must have" at the time. The folio, and the Giants and Drow series modules, made a tremendous impression on a generation of D&Ders.

[James Maliszewski]

May 14, 2008 0:50:29 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

I actually use Greyhawk (as a source for monsters and magic items) quite often. It's been years ere last I used Chainmail, apart from the nifty little jousting game included.

I'm in the same boat. I actually find Greyhawk a pretty essential book for the way I prefer to play OD&D. I don't use everything in it (I remain skeptical of Thieves and don't like the alternate Hit Dice types for the classes), but I use a lot, whereas the amount of material I use from any of the other supplements is slim.

I do think Foster's right that, if you used everything from Greyhawk, your OD&D would wind up feeling a bit like AD&D, but I see that as a feature rather than a bug. I actually like the AD&D "feel" overall (which I'd call "Gygaxian"), but the version of that feel conveyed in Supplement I somehow seems less "stuffy" and more "free" than in AD&D proper. Now, that might just be psychology at work rather than a feature of Greyhawk itself, but I'll nevertheless suggest that you shouldn't feel bad about using as much or as little of any supplement as you wish, even if doing so does push OD&D more toward AD&D.

One of the things I like to remember is that AD&D is a natural evolution of a particular style of OD&D play, albeit one that includes some "unnatural" elements grafted on and an overall philosophy that feels more "corporate" than hobbyist.

[sham]

Hey Trollman, you sound like you're about where I was back in February of '08. Trying to disassociate yourself from that AD&D 1e mindset, and grasp the vague and disorganized LBB.

Here's the single best bit of advice I can give you:

Keep reading all the posts here at OD&D Discussion. Old and new posts. The collective knowledge at this forum concerning OD&D is astounding.

Soon, it will 'click' and hopefully ring true for you. At that point, you will know which other supplemental bits are good for you. None of it is 'essential'. You've got the essentials already.

That's how it worked for me. Immediately I realized I had never actually been an AD&D player. We were always playing OD&D with AD&D trimmings, we just didn't realize it. I now consider myself a Neo-Grognard.

Have fun and don't hesitate to post questions if you come up with one that isn't covered in an older post.

[Thorulfr]

What else do you need?

Imagination?
Sense of Wonder?
Sense of Humor?
A willingness to say "OK, roll against your DEX" instead of "No, that's not in the rules"?

[coffee]

May 14, 2008 0:24:13 GMT -6 dwayanu said:

Any hard copies of the original TSR supplements are likely to be quite pricey collector's items; if you bought them as a collector, you'd probably want PDFs to take the wear and tear.

Actually, there was a copy of Eldritch Wizardry on ebay that just sold for under $10. I'm tracking a Swords & Spells right now, but it has a reserve.

I already have them both on PDF, so I won't be buying them, but I saw them available so I kept an eye on them out of curiousity. So they're really not unobtainable.

I do agree, however, that for playing/reference copies, PDFs should be just fine (after all, that's what I have.)

[Zulgyan]

I think that the BEST thing other than the LBB are the Ready Ref Sheets from JG. That followed by Chain-mail because it's really fun to use it as a way of filling OD&D's gaps and as guideline for interpretation.

Another recommendation is to get lots, lots, lots, of 6 sided dice. Men & Magic says "20 pairsof 6 sided dice". That would be 40 dice, right?

[doc]

I would say that the minimum you would need would be the LBB and I might also recommend that you keep it at that. The more supplements you lasso to gain ideas out of, the more that you transform the game into somebody else's idea of what a fantasy world should be rather than your own idea.

Now, with that caveat, if you want to use other books besides the LBB, I strongly suggest the First Fantasy Campaign. Seriously, I don't think I've ever come across anything that screams Old School like the FFC. Not only is it a great addition to a collection and a wonderful look into the origins of the hobby, but there are tons of interesting ideas that can be taken from it.

Greyhawk is also a great read with some useful bits in it (cough* thief *cough). Be warned that the more of Greyhawk you use, the more that your game will look like AD&D. Which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it won't feel as much like OD&D.

Blackmoor scores points with the assassin and monk classes, both of which I happen to like, but again you need to look out that it doesn't change the scope of your game from OD&D to AD&D. Also, even after all these years I find bits of Blackmoor to be somewhat difficult to digest.

Gods, Demigods, & Heroes may not be on the top of many peoples lists, but I've used both the Hyborian and Melnibonean chapters to great extents over the years. I also like the write-ups for the other pantheons. I like that I can get a general gist of what a pantheon is all about without having to pour over Bullfinch's Mythology or a similar work.

Eldritch Wizardry has some interesting monsters and I happen to love the artifacts, but the psionic system is hands down the worst aspect of the game. Confusing, convaluted, and overpowered, I've very rarely used it.

Chainmail and Sword & Spells don't thrill me much. Chainmail is interesting to read to see where D&D came from, but I don't think I've used either book very often.

So I guess to sum everything up I'd say:

Try to stick with your own imagination as much as possible, even if it leads to weird places (if it is leading to weird places, you are doing it right). If you want to include supplements, I'd go with FCC and Greyhawk. There are bits and pieces of the other books that are worth a look, but not as important.

Doc

[Zulgyan]

I long for a copy of FFC

[coffee]

May 14, 2008 10:44:07 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

I long for a copy of FFC

Then check this out:

cgi.ebay.com/The-First-Fantasy-Campaign-by-Dave-Arneson-EXCELLENT_W0QQitemZ290230487760QQihZ019QQcategoryZ158709QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

That could end up going for quite a bit, but there's always a chance!

[hackman]

I'd echo everything said so far. For me, it's hard to seperate the many years of roleplaying development from what's "essential" at times. I attempt to put myself into the mindset of someone having just picked up the original 3 little books. Going there I'd say the chainmail rules are the closest thing to essential, just for the races despcriptions alone and possibly some of the combat sequence stuff. Also, if I remember correctly, the dex and str bonuses in Greyhawk are for fighting men only? AD&D extends these bonuses out to all classes and I think the str chart is different between the two?

[Zulgyan]

May 14, 2008 10:46:27 GMT -6 coffee said:

May 14, 2008 10:44:07 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

I long for a copy of FFC

Then check this out:

cgi.ebay.com/The-First-Fantasy-Campaign-by-Dave-Arneson-EXCELLENT_W0QQitemZ290230487760QQihZ019QQcategoryZ158709QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

That could end up going for quite a bit, but there's always a chance!

Thanks!!! but....

Service only to the US.

I'll hunt for FFC when I'll be at NY this year.

[coffee]

May 14, 2008 11:26:06 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

Service only to the US.

I'll hunt for FFC when I'll be at NY this year.

Check again; it says "Ships worldwide" It goes on to say to contact the seller for shipping rates based on your country.

[busman]

I'm going to second what doc said.

Don't get anything else for a while. I think getting more stuff too soon will degrade your experience with OD&D.

Live with just the 3LBBs. Get to know them inside and out. Establish a rock solid base of these. Then once you're standing on solid ground, look at branching out to the supplements, or JG stuff, etc.

Back in the day, my group only ever had the 3LBB and we played for nearly 2 years with that (when we switched to AD&D). We had great fun and didn't miss anything.

The only possible exception I might make is JG's Ready Ref Sheets, as they don't really add a lot of rules, mostly a summation of the existing rules with some other thought experiments in there.

[TheMyth]

May 13, 2008 22:15:46 GMT -6 trollman said:

So far, I have bought the pdfs for White Box OD&D, and downloaded the Blackmoor supplement (available for free).

Where did you find Blackmoor pdf for free?

[busman]

www.blackmoorcastle.com/bmc.html

[TheMyth]

May 14, 2008 15:00:23 GMT -6 busman said:

www.blackmoorcastle.com/bmc.html

Thanks!

I think I downloaded this before, but I can't find it...

It'll be good to have again.

[trollman]

An EXALT to foster for that very informative post!

At some point, I will probably buy the pdfs for Chainmail and Greyhawk.

How different are the Supplements compared to what is found in the AD&D books? It sounds like if you have the AD&D books, then you basically have the content of the various Supplements.

[busman]

Feel free to preview all of the OD&D material:

www.dadsdnd.com

[coffee]

May 15, 2008 13:12:31 GMT -6 trollman said:

How different are the Supplements compared to what is found in the AD&D books? It sounds like if you have the AD&D books, then you basically have the content of the various Supplements.

It depends. Some things are very similar, some things are really different.

If you have the AD&D books, of course you can use them as supplements to OD&D (just like you can with anything). You can also use them to play AD&D. But you don't get the 'feel' of OD&D+. You don't see the evolution of the system, how it grew to become AD&D, and that's one of the things I was looking for and that's why I'm here.

It's a whole different game.

[badger2305]

May 15, 2008 13:21:07 GMT -6 busman said:

Feel free to preview all of the OD&D material:

www.dadsdnd.com

If it's the same site as I've seen before, it's unfortunately a complete copyright infringement. I understand the impulse, but I don't think it's a great idea to point people there.

[busman]

May 15, 2008 13:57:08 GMT -6 badger2305 said:

May 15, 2008 13:21:07 GMT -6 busman said:

Feel free to preview all of the OD&D material:

www.dadsdnd.com

If it's the same site as I've seen before, it's unfortunately a complete copyright infringement. I understand the impulse, but I don't think it's a great idea to point people there.

I'm certainly curious how it maintains it's existence. It's been there for a LONG time. Certainly people from WotC/Hasbro have seen it by now. And if my post is the one that gets it enough notoriety to clear the copyright infringement issue, then so be it. I don't see it as my job to protect WotC's copyrights.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be protected and abided by, but I am certain (100% certain) that the copyright holders have been informed of its existence. They can choose to act as they see fit.

It seems to me, by this sites continued existence, as well as a few other sites with similar content, that WotC is almost choosing NOT to defend its copyright on these products. If this is true, then should we still continue to refuse to direct traffic to them?

I personally would love it, if WotC would open OD&D up completely, abandon the copyright. This would make creating content for Fight On! and other OD&D material a lot easier.

[coffee]

May 15, 2008 14:11:21 GMT -6 busman said:

I personally would love it, if WotC would open OD&D up completely, abandon the copyright. This would make creating content for Fight On! and other OD&D material a lot easier.

I would, too, but I really don't think it's going to happen. Why should it? They make a buck or two every time somebody buys the PDFs of the OCE, so they are still generating revenue from the property.

Plus, they don't want it to get too big and divert income away from their flagship, soon-to-be-released D&D 4.0.

I wish they'd put out a brand new printing of the Original Collector's Edition so we could all buy new copies.

(Actually, what I really wish is that they'd either restore the 'Advanced' to the title or learn how to count...)

[foster1941]

I've been using that site for years -- it's how I'm able to pull direct quotes from the books while posting from work -- and don't feel guilty about it because I have legitimately purchased hardcopies of all of them on my bookshelf at home, but I don't direct others to it (at least in public) because 1) I think people should buy actual copies (including legitimate pdfs) of the books rather than relying on this free site, and 2) I don't want to be directly (or even indirectly) responsible for this site getting pulled down, and thus me losing it as a convenient reference.

[trollman]

I was wondering how dadsdnd doesn't get in trouble. When I clicked on it, I remembered that I had found that site years ago (but had completely forgotten about it).

It was very useful. Looking at a few pages, I have decided to definitely buy Greyhawk and Chainmail. Because of dadsdnd, I added Supplement IV to my list of "must haves". Unfortunately, looking up the reviews on rpgnow, Supplement IV appears to have a lousy scan. But perhaps I can get a hard copy for a decent price - I might be able to grab a deal on ebay one of these days.

[busman]

Be patient and you can get any of the supplements for $15 or so, sometimes less.