What should I call this hybrid of Editions?

[anthon]

What's a good name for my Grognard Hybrid Game of Mixed Old Editions?

There's forums for 1st edition AD&D, forums for 2nd edition AD&D, and Old Edition BECMI,

but i used all 3 interchangeably back in the late 90s. Our campaign used pretty much anything from dragon magazines or supplements ranging from 1978 to 1998. Oriental Adventures for Martial Arts, Planescape for Setting, Dark Sun for Psionics. Spells & Magic for everything. We pulled gems like Antipaladins and Berserkers from Dragon Magazines, and the Immortal Rules or DM's Option: High level for Big Bads and Ascension.

There's fantastic things in all these editions, Airships and Jousting Rules in BECMI, Social Class in Dragonlance Adventures, and Uber Magic in Netheril. I see each of these editions as a treasure chest (or dragon hoard) containing its own unique precious gems. But I've found despite all the differences, they are all unified by common ground of ideas like Saving Throws, Magic Resistance (Anti Magic in BECMI), and THAC0. Experience tables all follow a similar path as well, with about 2000 ish EXP at 2nd level and about 3000,000 at 20th. Low level monsters are worth 1-20 and High level monsters 10,000+. This consistency, and the tradition of custom EXP tables per class, allows us to treat different edition classes, or Race-Classes (elf? bladesinger? Avangion?) as their own class without much fuss. Pirate ships? Necromancers Handbook? Sha'irs from Al Qadim? Yes, Yes, and Yes.

Don't worry about 'bloat' making it hard to challenge your players. That's astoundingly easy at any level - like strange elemental bats with linked hp. Adamantine Butterfly swarms beautifully flittering through the fields. Swamps with acre sized black oozes just inches below the reflective waterline. Want to see how good your low level wizard is? Have him do a death match with a clowder of angry cats, with their paw/paw/bite.

For whatever reason, it worked. Different editions unified by THAC0.

The Grognard Game to End all Games.

But what would you call it?

[LibraryOgre]

Td&d. Tsr d&d.

[D+1]

An Old School AD&D Hybrid.

[2D8HP]

Very late '70's/early '80's my first DM used oD&D plus supplements and the '77 AD&D Monster Manual, worked fine, we just called it D&D, sure there's slight AC and HP adjustments, but nothing too onerous about mixing any TD&D, while I loved it at the time I now think AD&D was a mistake and it should've been even closer to oD&D, but it was still close enough that I lump it all together as "orthodox Dungeons & Dragons", heresy started with 1985's Unearthed Arcana, which 2e mostly ignored.
Back in the '80's if you used Arduin, All the World's Monsters, or heavily house ruled it you called it "variant" D&D, and truthfully every table that used any AD&D book was "variant" - there were just too many rules to keep track of! You fell back on oD&D or '77 Basic (or '81/'83 B/X for the newcomers) rules knowledge much of the time, I never saw a full and only AD&D game, plus with all the magazine article rules out there few table's rules matched others, maybe at conventions, but I only went to a couple of times and couldn't tell.

[Digitalelf]

While I started with the Moldvay Basic set, I soon switched over to AD&D (1e), and never used any of the rules or other material from basic (and at the time, I was oblivious to Original D&D). In fact, the only rules/material I used that were outside of the hardbound rulebooks and modules were from the pages of Dragon magazine.

It wasn't until I made the switch from 1st to 2nd edition that I broadened my horizons as it were, and started using older rules/material (even stuff published by other companies such as Judges Guild and Mayfair Games).

Today, I continue to run 2nd edition. While I have not had the need to use anything not labeled/branded 2nd edition in decades, I would not hesitate to do so if the need arose.

[anthon]

While I started with the Moldvay Basic set, I soon switched over to AD&D (1e), and never used any of the rules or other material from basic (and at the time, I was oblivious to Original D&D). In fact, the only rules/material I used that were outside of the hardbound rulebooks and modules were from the pages of Dragon magazine.

It wasn't until I made the switch from 1st to 2nd edition that I broadened my horizons as it were, and started using older rules/material (even stuff published by other companies such as Judges Guild and Mayfair Games).

Today, I continue to run 2nd edition. While I have not had the need to use anything not labeled/branded 2nd edition in decades, I would not hesitate to do so if the need arose.

I think editions like Advanced can be a real gem. Sometimes i get ideas from different editions.

i recall bandying about with the notion of dexterity influencing various things like weapon speed, movement allowance, or possibly even damage.

When i think about it, i could see Dexterity being a critical threat range modifier, while strength would be more like bonus damage.

[paladinn]

I'm doing a hybrid with features from everything from OD&D to 5e. I call it Heroes & Horrors.

[rredmond]

Advanced Classic D&D
Or, even better, anthon's D&D :D

Sounds like you are having a great time!

[Duff]

TL-D&D?
D&D mix-tape? (capturing the retro element)

[erikun]

Old-School Dungeons and Dragons

The older editions of D&D sort of assumed that players (specifically, DMs) would be using whichever specific rulesets for whichever specific activities they felt worked best. D&D was kinda-but-not-sorta designed to allow DMs to plug in whichever rules they felt worked best, so that if a better Mounted Combat or Coup de Grace or Armorsmithing set of rules was found in a homebrew or a magazine or a splatbook, it could be used as the official rules for the campaign over whatever was being used before. As I understand it, the big divide between BECMI and AD&D was that BECMI was more heavily influenced by the "modular" aspect of the rules, keeping different options available, while AD&D was more an "official" collection of rules to run the game. A lot of content designed for one could be used with the other with minimal, or sometimes no, changes.

Back at the time, this would just be called D&D. Maybe a "D&D Mix" if people wanted to specify that it wasn't specifically AD&D or Basic D&D. These days, just calling it D&D would get it confused with D&D5e, though. "Old-School D&D" would give the best impression to most people, since it would indicate what general systems your using (the THAC0 ones) and they probably wouldn't recognize AD&D2e from BECMI anyway. You could always be more specific with what's being used if somebody is curious, anyway.

[paladinn]

Old-School Dungeons and Dragons

The older editions of D&D sort of assumed that players (specifically, DMs) would be using whichever specific rulesets for whichever specific activities they felt worked best. D&D was kinda-but-not-sorta designed to allow DMs to plug in whichever rules they felt worked best, so that if a better Mounted Combat or Coup de Grace or Armorsmithing set of rules was found in a homebrew or a magazine or a splatbook, it could be used as the official rules for the campaign over whatever was being used before. As I understand it, the big divide between BECMI and AD&D was that BECMI was more heavily influenced by the "modular" aspect of the rules, keeping different options available, while AD&D was more an "official" collection of rules to run the game. A lot of content designed for one could be used with the other with minimal, or sometimes no, changes.


I think the big push away from "modular" play came with the popularity of tournaments. If you're going to DM something that's open to, well, anyone, you really do need to standardize. In 5e, the rule is usually, "PHB+1." That way a DM doesn't need to have every splatbook accessible at his/her table.

Which is probably why I don't do tournament play. I'm too much of an OSR grognard :)