My Group Tried Basic/Expert D&D - Some Reflections

[Catullus64]

Some of my usual campaign members are busy the next few weeks, so the rest of my group decided, on my prompting, to try out some OD&D, specifically the Basic & Expert rules from the 1983 'Red Box' set. Thought I'd post some musings and gather the thoughts of anyone who played this edition back in its day, or has tried playing it recently.

Spoiler: Character Generation

Show

First thought is that character generation is really good. Gotta love it when it can be done in under 10 minutes. With some stat adjustment built into the Basic rules, it strikes just the right balance for me between customization and the feel of discovering a pre-existing character. Crucially, 3d6-in-order sounds a lot scarier to a player of WotC-era D&D than it really is, because your ability scores themselves matter far less than they do in those later editions. Few complaints there.

Spoiler: Demi-Humans

Show

For basically the first time, I feel like I understand both the narrative and gameplay reasoning behind demi-human level limits. (This being the edition where Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling are classes). Gameplay-wise, it's actually fairly balanced, at least in the levels (1-14) included in this ruleset. Demi-humans are, level for level, almost strictly better than human characters, so they end up being pretty close to equivalent at cap; and they'll reach those different caps at roughly similar times because of steeper XP thresholds.

And on a narrative level, this piece of text really clued me into something: "[Halflings] are outgoing but not unusually brave, seeking treasure as a way of gaining the comforts of home which they so dearly love." I think that in some sense, the game envisions demi-human characters as being fundamentally differently motivated from humans: their interests only temporarily align with humans in terms of slaying monsters and acquiring treasure, and thus their involvement in a campaign is meant to be more transient. It's a fascinating perspective and possibly a bit of unintentionally subtle storytelling.

Spoiler: Alignment

Show

I've always been a fan of the three-point alignment system, and it's actually presented with surprising nuance here. Alignment languages are still goofy, though. Curiously, this edition is actually ahead of future-D&D: there are no alignment restrictions by class. Lawful Thieves are possible.

Alignment languages are still goofy, though. I know what they were going for, and it just doesn't work in practice.

Spoiler: Equipment

Show

The equipment list is interesting. The game provides little indication of what any of these pieces of gear are for, exactly. I only know from general osmosis, for instance, the sorts of uses to which you are likely to put a 10-foot pole, or a bunch of iron spikes. It is also revelatory to learn that doors in OD&D are stuck shut by default, and will return to being so if you don't wedge them open. The inclusion of iron spikes for wedging doors open/shut in subsequent editions makes so much more sense now.

Spoiler: Combat Woes

Show

The combat took some getting used to. The game text describing the combat sequence is frightfully confusing, as the example scenario doesn't actually seem to line up with what the rules say (the presentation of information in this game is just horrible when judged to a modern standard, and if I wasn't already an experienced player of other editions I think I'd be utterly lost). It also seems to assume that players all declare their actions at the top of the round. We tried it that way, and it didn't really seem to add anything; it mostly just created confusion, so we switched to just deciding what you're going to do on your initiative. We're using individual initiative because it's a little closer to what we're used to. But I like re-rolling it every round, which really adds to the drama; and when the initiatives are generally only 1-7, it's a lot easier to keep track of than d20 initiative.

Spoiler: Lethality

Show

The game is quite lethal at 1st-level, no surprise. We've lost 2 PCs and 2 Hireling so far, and that's with me as the DM pulling a punch or two. But more so than death from damage, conditions are also fairly brutal, with very few and specific ways to remove them. If you don't have immediate access to, say, a Cure Blindness spell, you're really up a creek.

Spoiler: XP Awards

Show

XP progression is strange. The game says that XP is awarded "at the end of the adventure." Of course the term "adventure" is defined in a completely different section of the book. Curiously, it defines the adventure as ending when the party leaves the dungeon and the group stops playing for tonight, two things the game blithely assumes will always coincide. That seems an odd assumption when you consider how long dungeon crawling can take. The party decided to retreat from the dungeon to rest only an hour in; am I just supposed to end the session there? As it is, I'm splitting the difference. XP from treasure only gets awarded when you get the stuff out of the dungeon, but monster XP is awarded on the spot. At any rate, progression is a lot slower than what I'm used to from AD&D onwards; you're 1st Level for a long time, it seems.

Spoiler: Dungeon Crawling

Show

The actual moment-to-moment exploration gameplay is fun and very satisfying. The amount of bookkeeping and turn-timers required was definitely an adjustment for the players: mapping, tracking encumbrance (an absolutely huge deal), torch & lantern timings, how long since the party has rested, how long they've been in the dungeon overall, which rounds wandering monsters are rolled for, deciding who is searching for what. If you told me how much game time those tasks would take up I would have thought it sounded exhausting, but we're all finding it weirdly absorbing.

Spoiler: Miscellaneous Quibbles, Questions, and Houserules

Show

As it is, the encumbrance rules seem a little harsh. I've ruled that worn armor has only half its stated encumbrance value.

The turn-by-turn movement is fine for progressing through the dungeon, but is painfully slow for the inevitable backtracking. I've ruled the party can move at double speed through areas of the dungeon already cleared, albeit at an increased chance of surprise (1-3 on the d6) if wandering monsters are encountered.

The game doesn't bother explaining any relation between the Thief's skills and the abilities of other characters. Read literally, this can lead to absurdities like the Thief being worse at spotting traps than other characters (10% chance vs. everyone else's 1 out of 6, or a Dwarf's 2 of 6). How the Thief's Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills are meant to interface with the surprise rules for the whole party is also never explained. I love Thieves and Rogues in D&D, but this particular iteration seems to exist in its own weird universe of systems, making me understand what a big deal it must have been when WotC integrated them into the general skill system in 3e. As it is, I'm just running the Thief's percentile abilities as cumulative with the normal chance of doing something.

The system for defensive movement is a little unintuitive for someone used to the Opportunity Attacks system of modern D&D. If you move more than the amount allowed for a Fighting Withdrawal, enemies get a bonus to hit you and you don't get your shield bonus. But if you're fast enough that the enemy can't catch up to you on the turn, or you have an ally to hold the line against them, they can't actually get to you to attack unless they have missile weapons, so it might pay off. Do I have that right? That there's no equivalent to the Opportunity Attack?

Also on the subject of combat movement, I initially assumed that Running in combat was mutually exclusive with attacking, analogous to the Dash Action of 5e. But now that I look I can't actually find anything to that effect (except that spellcasting can't be done in the same round as any kind of movement.) Can you run and still attack? If so, it seems like there's very little reason to ever actually use your regular combat move allowance.

Not exactly a ruling question, but it really seems to me like there's very little reason to use any melee setup other than a sword and shield (assuming you can use them). Any other one-handed weapon is objectively worse than a sword while being not significantly cheaper. Two-handed weapons make you always lose initiative, and give you higher (worse) AC in exchange for an average of 1 extra damage per round. A battle-axe doesn't even give you that! And this is compounded by the fact that, if you roll for magic items, magic swords are as probable as all other weapon types combined. Needless to say this is getting adjusted.

And on the pure complaining front, attack tables are the worst, and I immediately just converted them into AD&D-style THAC0, which is identical in terms of probability. It says something when THAC0 is the easier and more intuitive system of information presentation.

[Doug Lampert]

Some of my usual campaign members are busy the next few weeks, so the rest of my group decided, on my prompting, to try out some OD&D, specifically the Basic & Expert rules from the 1983 'Red Box' set. Thought I'd post some musings and gather the thoughts of anyone who played this edition back in its day, or has tried playing it recently.

Spoiler: Character Generation

Show

First thought is that character generation is really good. Gotta love it when it can be done in under 10 minutes. With some stat adjustment built into the Basic rules, it strikes just the right balance for me between customization and the feel of discovering a pre-existing character. Crucially, 3d6-in-order sounds a lot scarier to a player of WotC-era D&D than it really is, because your ability scores themselves matter far less than they do in those later editions. Few complaints there.

Spoiler: Demi-Humans

Show

For basically the first time, I feel like I understand both the narrative and gameplay reasoning behind demi-human level limits. (This being the edition where Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling are classes). Gameplay-wise, it's actually fairly balanced, at least in the levels (1-14) included in this ruleset. Demi-humans are, level for level, almost strictly better than human characters, so they end up being pretty close to equivalent at cap; and they'll reach those different caps at roughly similar times because of steeper XP thresholds.

And on a narrative level, this piece of text really clued me into something: "[Halflings] are outgoing but not unusually brave, seeking treasure as a way of gaining the comforts of home which they so dearly love." I think that in some sense, the game envisions demi-human characters as being fundamentally differently motivated from humans: their interests only temporarily align with humans in terms of slaying monsters and acquiring treasure, and thus their involvement in a campaign is meant to be more transient. It's a fascinating perspective and possibly a bit of unintentionally subtle storytelling.

Spoiler: Alignment

Show

I've always been a fan of the three-point alignment system, and it's actually presented with surprising nuance here. Alignment languages are still goofy, though. Curiously, this edition is actually ahead of future-D&D: there are no alignment restrictions by class. Lawful Thieves are possible.

Alignment languages are still goofy, though. I know what they were going for, and it just doesn't work in practice.

Spoiler: Equipment

Show

The equipment list is interesting. The game provides little indication of what any of these pieces of gear are for, exactly. I only know from general osmosis, for instance, the sorts of uses to which you are likely to put a 10-foot pole, or a bunch of iron spikes. It is also revelatory to learn that doors in OD&D are stuck shut by default, and will return to being so if you don't wedge them open. The inclusion of iron spikes for wedging doors open/shut in subsequent editions makes so much more sense now.

Spoiler: Combat Woes

Show

The combat took some getting used to. The game text describing the combat sequence is frightfully confusing, as the example scenario doesn't actually seem to line up with what the rules say (the presentation of information in this game is just horrible when judged to a modern standard, and if I wasn't already an experienced player of other editions I think I'd be utterly lost). It also seems to assume that players all declare their actions at the top of the round. We tried it that way, and it didn't really seem to add anything; it mostly just created confusion, so we switched to just deciding what you're going to do on your initiative. We're using individual initiative because it's a little closer to what we're used to. But I like re-rolling it every round, which really adds to the drama; and when the initiatives are generally only 1-7, it's a lot easier to keep track of than d20 initiative.

Spoiler: Lethality

Show

The game is quite lethal at 1st-level, no surprise. We've lost 2 PCs and 2 Hireling so far, and that's with me as the DM pulling a punch or two. But more so than death from damage, conditions are also fairly brutal, with very few and specific ways to remove them. If you don't have immediate access to, say, a Cure Blindness spell, you're really up a creek.

Spoiler: XP Awards

Show

XP progression is strange. The game says that XP is awarded "at the end of the adventure." Of course the term "adventure" is defined in a completely different section of the book. Curiously, it defines the adventure as ending when the party leaves the dungeon and the group stops playing for tonight, two things the game blithely assumes will always coincide. That seems an odd assumption when you consider how long dungeon crawling can take. The party decided to retreat from the dungeon to rest only an hour in; am I just supposed to end the session there? As it is, I'm splitting the difference. XP from treasure only gets awarded when you get the stuff out of the dungeon, but monster XP is awarded on the spot. At any rate, progression is a lot slower than what I'm used to from AD&D onwards; you're 1st Level for a long time, it seems.

Spoiler: Dungeon Crawling

Show

The actual moment-to-moment exploration gameplay is fun and very satisfying. The amount of bookkeeping and turn-timers required was definitely an adjustment for the players: mapping, tracking encumbrance (an absolutely huge deal), torch & lantern timings, how long since the party has rested, how long they've been in the dungeon overall, which rounds wandering monsters are rolled for, deciding who is searching for what. If you told me how much game time those tasks would take up I would have thought it sounded exhausting, but we're all finding it weirdly absorbing.

Spoiler: Miscellaneous Quibbles, Questions, and Houserules

Show

As it is, the encumbrance rules seem a little harsh. I've ruled that worn armor has only half its stated encumbrance value.

The turn-by-turn movement is fine for progressing through the dungeon, but is painfully slow for the inevitable backtracking. I've ruled the party can move at double speed through areas of the dungeon already cleared, albeit at an increased chance of surprise (1-3 on the d6) if wandering monsters are encountered.

The game doesn't bother explaining any relation between the Thief's skills and the abilities of other characters. Read literally, this can lead to absurdities like the Thief being worse at spotting traps than other characters (10% chance vs. everyone else's 1 out of 6, or a Dwarf's 2 of 6). How the Thief's Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills are meant to interface with the surprise rules for the whole party is also never explained. I love Thieves and Rogues in D&D, but this particular iteration seems to exist in its own weird universe of systems, making me understand what a big deal it must have been when WotC integrated them into the general skill system in 3e. As it is, I'm just running the Thief's percentile abilities as cumulative with the normal chance of doing something.

The system for defensive movement is a little unintuitive for someone used to the Opportunity Attacks system of modern D&D. If you move more than the amount allowed for a Fighting Withdrawal, enemies get a bonus to hit you and you don't get your shield bonus. But if you're fast enough that the enemy can't catch up to you on the turn, or you have an ally to hold the line against them, they can't actually get to you to attack unless they have missile weapons, so it might pay off. Do I have that right? That there's no equivalent to the Opportunity Attack?

Also on the subject of combat movement, I initially assumed that Running in combat was mutually exclusive with attacking, analogous to the Dash Action of 5e. But now that I look I can't actually find anything to that effect (except that spellcasting can't be done in the same round as any kind of movement.) Can you run and still attack? If so, it seems like there's very little reason to ever actually use your regular combat move allowance.

Not exactly a ruling question, but it really seems to me like there's very little reason to use any melee setup other than a sword and shield (assuming you can use them). Any other one-handed weapon is objectively worse than a sword while being not significantly cheaper. Two-handed weapons make you always lose initiative, and give you higher (worse) AC in exchange for an average of 1 extra damage per round. A battle-axe doesn't even give you that! And this is compounded by the fact that, if you roll for magic items, magic swords are as probable as all other weapon types combined. Needless to say this is getting adjusted.

And on the pure complaining front, attack tables are the worst, and I immediately just converted them into AD&D-style THAC0, which is identical in terms of probability. It says something when THAC0 is the easier and more intuitive system of information presentation.

Pet peeve, Basic is NOT OD&D, D&D (no basic or advanced, just D&D) came out YEARS before basic.

[Willie the Duck]

Hey! This is awesome! It is always great when someone decides to explore some of the earlier games, and even better when they find things they like about them.

Let's start with names and terms. Now, to be clear, this is all online-discussion conventions, as all the books have 'Dungeons and Dragons' as the title. However, they are useful in avoiding confusion, much like using 'ST: TOS' to discuss the original series Star Trek along with later iterations of the IP. You did use the term oD&D instead of D&D, so I'm assuming you are trying to use those conventions. Typically, 'oD&D' (or sometimes 'OD&D') is used to denote the original little brown books from the 1974 release and subsequent reprints. The rest of the TSR-era, not-Advanced line (and I say it that way instead of 'not-AD&D' because there are people who will insist that 'AD&D' means 1st edition specifically, and that entire branch would have to be 'AD&D and AD&D 2nd edition') are generally denoted as follows:

1977 Blue boxed set with Erol Otis cover art; 'edited' by Dr. J. Eric Holmes - 'B' or 'Holmes Basic'
1981 magenta and blue boxed sets with Erol Otis cover art; edited by Tom Moldvay, David Cook, and Steve Marsh - 'B/X' or 'Moldvay-Cook'
1983 boxed sets in Red, Blue, Teal, Black and Gold boxes with Larry Elmore cover art; edited by Frank Mentzer - 'BECMI' or 'Mentzer Basic'
1991 Rules Cyclopedia book by Aaron Allston is called 'RC,' but is oftentimes lumped in as the same edition as BECMI, as are the various introductory boxed sets of the 90s.

Now, just to verify, are you sure what you are using is the 1983 Mentzer set (the basic player's section will include a 'choose your own adventure' style introduction)? I ask only in that you said the ruleset was L1-14, which is true for B/X, bot only true for BECMI in that you don't have the last 3 boxes, an that it's rare these days that one finds it in the wild without at least the Companion set (levels 15-25) as well. I'm primarily asking just so I can use page # references, as I don't think it will otherwise make a big impact.

For basically the first time, I feel like I understand both the narrative and gameplay reasoning behind demi-human level limits. (This being the edition where Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling are classes). Gameplay-wise, it's actually fairly balanced, at least in the levels (1-14) included in this ruleset. Demi-humans are, level for level, almost strictly better than human characters, so they end up being pretty close to equivalent at cap; and they'll reach those different caps at roughly similar times because of steeper XP thresholds.
And on a narrative level, this piece of text really clued me into something: "[Halflings] are outgoing but not unusually brave, seeking treasure as a way of gaining the comforts of home which they so dearly love." I think that in some sense, the game envisions demi-human characters as being fundamentally differently motivated from humans: their interests only temporarily align with humans in terms of slaying monsters and acquiring treasure, and thus their involvement in a campaign is meant to be more transient. It's a fascinating perspective and possibly a bit of unintentionally subtle storytelling.

I certainly agree that having caps of 8, 10, and 12 isn't really that burdensome if only playing to 14 at most. I always felt that they had it reversed though. Elves seem the most powerful, and thus IMO should have had the lowest cap, while halflings were the least, and should have been able to go to 12. Sure, their XP to level was set right (with halflings the lower and elves the highest), but that just meant the halflings were the mostly likely to actually run into said limitation.
The narrative portion is more compelling to me than the power-level argument. And it stems from Gygax's notion that the game ought be humanocentric. I would have still preferred that this component be resolved by saying that 1 in 100 humans decide to take up adventuring, 1 in 1000 dwarves, 1 in 10,000 elves, and halflings only when mad wizards and dwarves drag them along on ill-conceived quests.

Alignment languages are still goofy, though. I know what they were going for, and it just doesn't work in practice.

They only really work when one envisions the language/alignment of representing an actual team (as it was in Chainmail). So in the war between the ICantUseRealWorldExamples and the StillCantUseThems, all the ICURWEs have a common tongue which they learned during their war against the SCUTs. One of those places where D&D suffered from trying to be a generic fantasy RPG, while still having clear vestiges of an implied setting.

[/quote]XP progression is strange. The game says that XP is awarded "at the end of the adventure." Of course the term "adventure" is defined in a completely different section of the book. Curiously, it defines the adventure as ending when the party leaves the dungeon and the group stops playing for tonight, two things the game blithely assumes will always coincide. That seems an odd assumption when you consider how long dungeon crawling can take. The party decided to retreat from the dungeon to rest only an hour in; am I just supposed to end the session there? As it is, I'm splitting the difference. XP from treasure only gets awarded when you get the stuff out of the dungeon, but monster XP is awarded on the spot. At any rate, progression is a lot slower than what I'm used to from AD&D onwards; you're 1st Level for a long time, it seems.[/quote]
Yes, the gaming session is supposed to end when you leave the dungeon, and time between sessions takes place in about real time*. This means that, if you decide to head back because everyone is half-dead, and you play every Sunday, the DM's Tuesday night group just might find the same dungeon and sweep through and grab the rest of the treasure before you can come back. Exactly how often this style of gameplay was adhered to is a matter of conjecture. However 'and then we stop for the evening' is one of the ways that recharging effects were balanced. People complain an awful lot about the 5/15 minute workday in modern D&D, and this was (if used) one of the ways that earlier editions managed this.
*actually this might be an AD&D thing

As for advancement. I did the math once based on average treasure gp-value, plus listed xp-value for level 1 monsters. I remember it taking multiple sessions (or even multiple modules), but less time than I expected. One thing that I think needs to be considered (for this and the leaving to rest issue above) is that there is an expectation that the PCs and their hirelings aren't just going to toe-to-toe it with the enemies every time and just attrite each other down until the baddies die and then take their stuff. The reaction table will be used. Morale checks will be used (all the more reason that undead are terrifying). PCs will convince, coerce, or drive off enemies and take their treasure and come out with XP ahead but no HP down. Again, exactly how prevalent that was BITD is a subject of eternal discussion, but I think it safe to say that if you didn't do so, you had best also be prepared to alter the xp progression, as it seems to be an assumption in the balance of the game as written.

Miscellaneous Quibbles, Questions, and Houserules...
As it is, the encumbrance rules seem a little harsh. I've ruled that worn armor has only half its stated encumbrance value.

I think it is intended to be (as in, you can get along fine with lowered speed). Especially given that those without armor can take on encumbrance without slowing the party overall (and, unless you really use the adage of 'I don't have to outrun the bear, just outrun you,' not suffer consequences). Regardless, tough choices between equipment into dungeon, treasure out of dungeon, which armor, and how fast you wanted to move were supposed to be an integral part of the game. It's been a while, so I can't speak to the specific numbers (you may well be right that it is crazy hard as written), but the overall concept of those tough choices is part of the primary game loop EGG thought people would find fun.

The game doesn't bother explaining any relation between the Thief's skills and the abilities of other characters. Read literally, this can lead to absurdities like the Thief being worse at spotting traps than other characters (10% chance vs. everyone else's 1 out of 6, or a Dwarf's 2 of 6). How the Thief's Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills are meant to interface with the surprise rules for the whole party is also never explained. I love Thieves and Rogues in D&D, but this particular iteration seems to exist in its own weird universe of systems, making me understand what a big deal it must have been when WotC integrated them into the general skill system in 3e. As it is, I'm just running the Thief's percentile abilities as cumulative with the normal chance of doing something.

Who boy, here goes... Yeah, this is one of the most fundamental issues people (especially those who did not start with it, but let's be clear there were plenty of gripes about it at the time as well) have with TSR era D&D -- there wasn't a generalized resolution mechanic*, and little to no guidance on what to do when more than one thing covered a given situation. Thieves' abilities in particular hit this issue hard.
*Moldvay Cook actually sort of had one on p.X51, but that was denoted treated as what to do when the other rules didn't cover something.


FWIW, my groups always did this: 1) there are things that others couldn't do that thieves' can (the anyone can find a trap rules doesn't cover magic traps and doesn't cover removing them; anyone can hide in a hallway the opponents don't go down or behind a door, the thief can hide out in the open merely in shadows); 2) if anyone could do something and a thief can do them, we let the thief make the check anyone could make, and then their class-granted attempt (in the case of checking for traps, we ruled this way even though each individual entry said it could only be tried once); and 3) unlike AD&D (which really seems to have included a lot of fear that the players were trying to get away with something), basic-classic does not include a lot of language stating that thieves should be limited to realistic endeavors; thus we always interpreted it as thieves could climb smooth featureless walls, up ice shelves, hide in improbably small shadows (or behind comically thin trees and posts, because we've all watched Looney Toons), and so on. None of that changes that a TSR-era thief is a thankless roll (especially in BECMI, as they stretched the advancement such that they only approached 100% in most of their abilities after 30th level, well past the point where they would see use).

The system for defensive movement is a little unintuitive for someone used to the Opportunity Attacks system of modern D&D. If you move more than the amount allowed for a Fighting Withdrawal, enemies get a bonus to hit you and you don't get your shield bonus. But if you're fast enough that the enemy can't catch up to you on the turn, or you have an ally to hold the line against them, they can't actually get to you to attack unless they have missile weapons, so it might pay off. Do I have that right? That there's no equivalent to the Opportunity Attack?

Pretty much. If you have an ally to play interference, you can probably back up fine. This seems to be an intended component of gameplay. Fighters and hirelings line up (up to 3 wide in a 10' corridor) and protect the squishy rear. People who drop below a certain hit point threshold cycle out and let other melee-ready characters take up the front line (possibly grabbing a bow, possibly spear or polearm as a second line, although I think that's only made clear in the Master boxed set and Rule Cyclopedia). If you don't have an ally playing interference, you can back up defensively (half speed, almost guaranteed enemy can match you, and they still get to attack while you did not since movement happens before combat) and hope that maybe you're moving past the point they are willing to move out to (for fear that you have reinforcements, or they have enemies back that way, etc.); or you can turn and run, in which case you might be faster than them, but if you aren't, they will (again, if they choose to pursue) catch up and attack with bonuses. Your best hope is that you and others are both running away, and you aren't the one selected for attack. This rather resembles what happens in a IRL medieval melee rout -- if they don't fear being drawn into a trap, the side that doesn't break gets to pursue and kill (but they have to pursue). I think later versions of the game included AoO or OA effects as a simplification of this

Also on the subject of combat movement, I initially assumed that Running in combat was mutually exclusive with attacking, analogous to the Dash Action of 5e. But now that I look I can't actually find anything to that effect (except that spellcasting can't be done in the same round as any kind of movement.) Can you run and still attack? If so, it seems like there's very little reason to ever actually use your regular combat move allowance.

They are usually the only movement allowed (to the people whose speed is most relevant, I guess). Only Defensive Movement (fighting withdrawal and retreat) are possible once opponents are engaged in melee. You will notice that this doesn't cover those who never enter melee (such as archers, or an entire combat of ongoing shoot-and-scoot tactics). It's not clear if the logic is that this is unlikely to occur (/the movement speed of the ranged fighters ever be relevant), or whether such situations were deemed complex enough that the DM was going to have to step in and adjudicate regardless. It should really be noted that the Basic-expert combat rules really lean into the expectation that most combat will occur in confined dungeons with limited space and where walls naturally constrict the overall combat scenario and where most movement can be summed up as 'towards the opponent' or 'away from them.' This is true even for the expert rules, which is frustrating as it is the book which adds more wilderness travel, mapping, and hex generation rules.

really seems to me like there's very little reason to use any melee setup other than a sword and shield (assuming you can use them). Any other one-handed weapon is objectively worse than a sword while being not significantly cheaper. Two-handed weapons make you always lose initiative, and give you higher (worse) AC in exchange for an average of 1 extra damage per round. A battle-axe doesn't even give you that! And this is compounded by the fact that, if you roll for magic items, magic swords are as probable as all other weapon types combined. Needless to say this is getting adjusted.

The Master ruleset (4th of the BECMI line) includes some additional rules, making polearms useful (plus it and companion set have a few more weapons, including I think nets and blowguns which have occasional uses). But yes, overall, this is the case. It's worth mentioning that, previous to Mentzer, the default rules was that all weapons dealt 1d6 damage -- B/X had the Mentzer numbers as an optional rule. oD&D had just 1d6s and then the primary advantage of each weapon was that it did better and worse against various armor (/armor+shield) combinations. Holmes basic has a (acknowledged to be typo/incomplete writing) rule where all weapons did d6 and two handed weapons took 2 rounds to swing, and you could swing twice with daggers (guess what got used most until the DM houseruled things?).

B/X and BECMI were in this weird place. B/X was created with no sense that it would take off. It was literally produced to support the notion that D&D and AD&D were two separate but supported game lines within the company (necessary for reasons related to Dave Arneson's lawsuit against the company). But people liked it (warts and all), and they then produced the Mentzer version perhaps to make it even a little more accessible (swap out a sample adventure for a choose-your-own-adventure-style intro, get rid of the wonky 'expect set should be pulled apart and included in 3-ring binder alongside player and DM components of basic set' format, remove the topless mermaid pic, etc.) without much reexamination of base components (at least certainly until the Companion set and the domain rules). There are wonky bits. Even those of us who love it and what it represents have to acknowledge a whole bunch of these things (although I'd still say the lackluster thief rules are the real kicker).

[Thrudd]

Yeah. There's a reason the OSR movement took off - there's a lot to like about this game, and various people have chosen to iron out the wrinkles in different ways into even better systems (imo).

On Thieves: the way I did traps, the thief gets to roll their skill in addition to the check the whole party gets. I have the thief roll first (or I roll secretly for them), and if they fail, then everyone (including the thief) rolls their d6. Thief is the only person who has a chance to disarm traps or pick locks - though giving a description of the visible parts of the trap, once detected, allows the players to attempt to bypass it without disarming it, through common sense or creative problem solving.

Since hiding in shadows does not give the thief the ability to detect anything, surprise still applies to the party as a whole. If the thief was successfully hidden before the encounter, then I ruled the enemies won't target them until the thief attacks (as long as the positioning makes this plausible). This might mean the enemies will walk right past the thief to get to the rest of the party, giving them a chance to backstab. I also assumed that the only thing needed to hide for a thief was a little bit of shadow. The only way moving silently would prevent surprise (or grant it automatically), is if the thief is alone, sufficiently distant from the party (I used to say 100 ft).

The Master and Companion supplements added rules for weapon specializations and gave different weapons special abilities you can learn by mastering them to different levels - this gives some incentive to choose something other than sword, although the system can use some tweaking. Some weapons can disarm, some can stun, deflect attacks, daggers can crit for double damage. The entire BECM system was compiled in a single book in the Rulescyclopedia edition, with maybe some minor changes.

[Catullus64]

Hey! This is awesome! It is always great when someone decides to explore some of the earlier games, and even better when they find things they like about them.

Let's start with names and terms. Now, to be clear, this is all online-discussion conventions, as all the books have 'Dungeons and Dragons' as the title. However, they are useful in avoiding confusion, much like using 'ST: TOS' to discuss the original series Star Trek along with later iterations of the IP. You did use the term oD&D instead of D&D, so I'm assuming you are trying to use those conventions. Typically, 'oD&D' (or sometimes 'OD&D') is used to denote the original little brown books from the 1974 release and subsequent reprints. The rest of the TSR-era, not-Advanced line (and I say it that way instead of 'not-AD&D' because there are people who will insist that 'AD&D' means 1st edition specifically, and that entire branch would have to be 'AD&D and AD&D 2nd edition') are generally denoted as follows:

1977 Blue boxed set with Erol Otis cover art; 'edited' by Dr. J. Eric Holmes - 'B' or 'Holmes Basic'
1981 magenta and blue boxed sets with Erol Otis cover art; edited by Tom Moldvay, David Cook, and Steve Marsh - 'B/X' or 'Moldvay-Cook'
1983 boxed sets in Red, Blue, Teal, Black and Gold boxes with Larry Elmore cover art; edited by Frank Mentzer - 'BECMI' or 'Mentzer Basic'
1991 Rules Cyclopedia book by Aaron Allston is called 'RC,' but is oftentimes lumped in as the same edition as BECMI, as are the various introductory boxed sets of the 90s.

Now, just to verify, are you sure what you are using is the 1983 Mentzer set (the basic player's section will include a 'choose your own adventure' style introduction)? I ask only in that you said the ruleset was L1-14, which is true for B/X, bot only true for BECMI in that you don't have the last 3 boxes, an that it's rare these days that one finds it in the wild without at least the Companion set (levels 15-25) as well. I'm primarily asking just so I can use page # references, as I don't think it will otherwise make a big impact.

You know, I'm not entirely certain. All the booklets are in the red box with the Larry Elmore art (classic!), but I don't think they all originally came in it. I got the box second-hand from my girlfriend's father, and I think he may have done some compressing. Some are missing their covers and have been paper-clipped back together after their bindings have deteriorated.

Yes, the gaming session is supposed to end when you leave the dungeon, and time between sessions takes place in about real time*. This means that, if you decide to head back because everyone is half-dead, and you play every Sunday, the DM's Tuesday night group just might find the same dungeon and sweep through and grab the rest of the treasure before you can come back. Exactly how often this style of gameplay was adhered to is a matter of conjecture. However 'and then we stop for the evening' is one of the ways that recharging effects were balanced. People complain an awful lot about the 5/15 minute workday in modern D&D, and this was (if used) one of the ways that earlier editions managed this.
*actually this might be an AD&D thing

You know, I've heard that in the older days, fluctuating player bases taking cracks at the same dungeon was pretty common. In that context, rather than the stable groups which are the assumed norm today, having the retreat from dungeon mark the session's end makes a little more sense, as it means you can play in many smaller chunks throughout the week.

I think it is intended to be (as in, you can get along fine with lowered speed). Especially given that those without armor can take on encumbrance without slowing the party overall (and, unless you really use the adage of 'I don't have to outrun the bear, just outrun you,' not suffer consequences). Regardless, tough choices between equipment into dungeon, treasure out of dungeon, which armor, and how fast you wanted to move were supposed to be an integral part of the game. It's been a while, so I can't speak to the specific numbers (you may well be right that it is crazy hard as written), but the overall concept of those tough choices is part of the primary game loop EGG thought people would find fun.

The difficult choices about what to try to carry and how to get the loot out are definitely fun, but I still think they're a little undertuned. Maybe that's just because the dice have resulted in a truly massive hoard of copper pieces!

Who boy, here goes... Yeah, this is one of the most fundamental issues people (especially those who did not start with it, but let's be clear there were plenty of gripes about it at the time as well) have with TSR era D&D -- there wasn't a generalized resolution mechanic*, and little to no guidance on what to do when more than one thing covered a given situation. Thieves' abilities in particular hit this issue hard.
*Moldvay Cook actually sort of had one on p.X51, but that was denoted treated as what to do when the other rules didn't cover something.

Is that the 'try to roll at or under appropriate ability score' thing? That's what I've been using when we need to improv something.

The Master ruleset (4th of the BECMI line) includes some additional rules, making polearms useful (plus it and companion set have a few more weapons, including I think nets and blowguns which have occasional uses). But yes, overall, this is the case. It's worth mentioning that, previous to Mentzer, the default rules was that all weapons dealt 1d6 damage -- B/X had the Mentzer numbers as an optional rule. oD&D had just 1d6s and then the primary advantage of each weapon was that it did better and worse against various armor (/armor+shield) combinations. Holmes basic has a (acknowledged to be typo/incomplete writing) rule where all weapons did d6 and two handed weapons took 2 rounds to swing, and you could swing twice with daggers (guess what got used most until the DM houseruled things?).

I'll check 'em out, although upon closer inspection, that book appears slightly waterlogged!

B/X and BECMI were in this weird place. B/X was created with no sense that it would take off. It was literally produced to support the notion that D&D and AD&D were two separate but supported game lines within the company (necessary for reasons related to Dave Arneson's lawsuit against the company). But people liked it (warts and all), and they then produced the Mentzer version perhaps to make it even a little more accessible (swap out a sample adventure for a choose-your-own-adventure-style intro, get rid of the wonky 'expect set should be pulled apart and included in 3-ring binder alongside player and DM components of basic set' format, remove the topless mermaid pic, etc.) without much reexamination of base components (at least certainly until the Companion set and the domain rules). There are wonky bits. Even those of us who love it and what it represents have to acknowledge a whole bunch of these things (although I'd still say the lackluster thief rules are the real kicker).

Interesting history. I considered actually trying to play the '74 version, but promptly reconsidered when I actually got to reading it. Specifically the part where it still uses the Chainmail rules.

[olskool]

Some of my usual campaign members are busy the next few weeks, so the rest of my group decided, on my prompting, to try out some OD&D, specifically the Basic & Expert rules from the 1983 'Red Box' set. Thought I'd post some musings and gather the thoughts of anyone who played this edition back in its day, or has tried playing it recently.

Spoiler: Character Generation

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First thought is that character generation is really good. Gotta love it when it can be done in under 10 minutes. With some stat adjustment built into the Basic rules, it strikes just the right balance for me between customization and the feel of discovering a pre-existing character. Crucially, 3d6-in-order sounds a lot scarier to a player of WotC-era D&D than it really is, because your ability scores themselves matter far less than they do in those later editions. Few complaints there.

Spoiler: Demi-Humans

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For basically the first time, I feel like I understand both the narrative and gameplay reasoning behind demi-human level limits. (This being the edition where Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling are classes). Gameplay-wise, it's actually fairly balanced, at least in the levels (1-14) included in this ruleset. Demi-humans are, level for level, almost strictly better than human characters, so they end up being pretty close to equivalent at cap; and they'll reach those different caps at roughly similar times because of steeper XP thresholds.

And on a narrative level, this piece of text really clued me into something: "[Halflings] are outgoing but not unusually brave, seeking treasure as a way of gaining the comforts of home which they so dearly love." I think that in some sense, the game envisions demi-human characters as being fundamentally differently motivated from humans: their interests only temporarily align with humans in terms of slaying monsters and acquiring treasure, and thus their involvement in a campaign is meant to be more transient. It's a fascinating perspective and possibly a bit of unintentionally subtle storytelling.

Spoiler: Alignment

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I've always been a fan of the three-point alignment system, and it's actually presented with surprising nuance here. Alignment languages are still goofy, though. Curiously, this edition is actually ahead of future-D&D: there are no alignment restrictions by class. Lawful Thieves are possible.

Alignment languages are still goofy, though. I know what they were going for, and it just doesn't work in practice.

Spoiler: Equipment

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The equipment list is interesting. The game provides little indication of what any of these pieces of gear are for, exactly. I only know from general osmosis, for instance, the sorts of uses to which you are likely to put a 10-foot pole, or a bunch of iron spikes. It is also revelatory to learn that doors in OD&D are stuck shut by default, and will return to being so if you don't wedge them open. The inclusion of iron spikes for wedging doors open/shut in subsequent editions makes so much more sense now.

Spoiler: Combat Woes

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The combat took some getting used to. The game text describing the combat sequence is frightfully confusing, as the example scenario doesn't actually seem to line up with what the rules say (the presentation of information in this game is just horrible when judged to a modern standard, and if I wasn't already an experienced player of other editions I think I'd be utterly lost). It also seems to assume that players all declare their actions at the top of the round. We tried it that way, and it didn't really seem to add anything; it mostly just created confusion, so we switched to just deciding what you're going to do on your initiative. We're using individual initiative because it's a little closer to what we're used to. But I like re-rolling it every round, which really adds to the drama; and when the initiatives are generally only 1-7, it's a lot easier to keep track of than d20 initiative.

Spoiler: Lethality

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The game is quite lethal at 1st-level, no surprise. We've lost 2 PCs and 2 Hireling so far, and that's with me as the DM pulling a punch or two. But more so than death from damage, conditions are also fairly brutal, with very few and specific ways to remove them. If you don't have immediate access to, say, a Cure Blindness spell, you're really up a creek.

Spoiler: XP Awards

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XP progression is strange. The game says that XP is awarded "at the end of the adventure." Of course the term "adventure" is defined in a completely different section of the book. Curiously, it defines the adventure as ending when the party leaves the dungeon and the group stops playing for tonight, two things the game blithely assumes will always coincide. That seems an odd assumption when you consider how long dungeon crawling can take. The party decided to retreat from the dungeon to rest only an hour in; am I just supposed to end the session there? As it is, I'm splitting the difference. XP from treasure only gets awarded when you get the stuff out of the dungeon, but monster XP is awarded on the spot. At any rate, progression is a lot slower than what I'm used to from AD&D onwards; you're 1st Level for a long time, it seems.

Spoiler: Dungeon Crawling

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The actual moment-to-moment exploration gameplay is fun and very satisfying. The amount of bookkeeping and turn-timers required was definitely an adjustment for the players: mapping, tracking encumbrance (an absolutely huge deal), torch & lantern timings, how long since the party has rested, how long they've been in the dungeon overall, which rounds wandering monsters are rolled for, deciding who is searching for what. If you told me how much game time those tasks would take up I would have thought it sounded exhausting, but we're all finding it weirdly absorbing.

Spoiler: Miscellaneous Quibbles, Questions, and Houserules

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As it is, the encumbrance rules seem a little harsh. I've ruled that worn armor has only half its stated encumbrance value.

The turn-by-turn movement is fine for progressing through the dungeon, but is painfully slow for the inevitable backtracking. I've ruled the party can move at double speed through areas of the dungeon already cleared, albeit at an increased chance of surprise (1-3 on the d6) if wandering monsters are encountered.

The game doesn't bother explaining any relation between the Thief's skills and the abilities of other characters. Read literally, this can lead to absurdities like the Thief being worse at spotting traps than other characters (10% chance vs. everyone else's 1 out of 6, or a Dwarf's 2 of 6). How the Thief's Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills are meant to interface with the surprise rules for the whole party is also never explained. I love Thieves and Rogues in D&D, but this particular iteration seems to exist in its own weird universe of systems, making me understand what a big deal it must have been when WotC integrated them into the general skill system in 3e. As it is, I'm just running the Thief's percentile abilities as cumulative with the normal chance of doing something.

The system for defensive movement is a little unintuitive for someone used to the Opportunity Attacks system of modern D&D. If you move more than the amount allowed for a Fighting Withdrawal, enemies get a bonus to hit you and you don't get your shield bonus. But if you're fast enough that the enemy can't catch up to you on the turn, or you have an ally to hold the line against them, they can't actually get to you to attack unless they have missile weapons, so it might pay off. Do I have that right? That there's no equivalent to the Opportunity Attack?

Also on the subject of combat movement, I initially assumed that Running in combat was mutually exclusive with attacking, analogous to the Dash Action of 5e. But now that I look I can't actually find anything to that effect (except that spellcasting can't be done in the same round as any kind of movement.) Can you run and still attack? If so, it seems like there's very little reason to ever actually use your regular combat move allowance.

Not exactly a ruling question, but it really seems to me like there's very little reason to use any melee setup other than a sword and shield (assuming you can use them). Any other one-handed weapon is objectively worse than a sword while being not significantly cheaper. Two-handed weapons make you always lose initiative, and give you higher (worse) AC in exchange for an average of 1 extra damage per round. A battle-axe doesn't even give you that! And this is compounded by the fact that, if you roll for magic items, magic swords are as probable as all other weapon types combined. Needless to say this is getting adjusted.

And on the pure complaining front, attack tables are the worst, and I immediately just converted them into AD&D-style THAC0, which is identical in terms of probability. It says something when THAC0 is the easier and more intuitive system of information presentation.

If you want to try an old-school D&D using modern 5e rules, pickup FIVE TORCHES DEEP. It's 5e with old-school grit!

To increase survivability a bit more in this version of D&D, give your PCs a FULL HIT DIE of the appropriate type (D4, D6, or D8) for their ZERO-LEVEL training. You will often see quotes like "0-level man-at-arms" in dungeon descriptions. Note that those guys will have a full Hit Die worth of hit points. That extra Hit Die will certainly help the PCs get to higher levels. Once HP are at 0, we had the PC fall unconscious and start dying. When Hit Points reached a NEGATIVE number equal to CON, the PC is DEAD.

For the Thief Skills, We just fudged it. The best way to fix it now would be to convert the percentages to a D20 number by dividing by 5 and adding that to any Attribute Bonuses you decide to use (DEX bonuses would obviously work). For the listen chance, I'd set it at 25% (a 5 or less roll on D20) for everyone and then add the Thief's bonus by Level to that number.
On the other hand, there is also NO REASON you could not use 5e's PROFICIENCY System with this older edition. The Proficiency system IS pretty elegant and straightforward and wouldn't break any older version of D&D.

On Magic-User utility... You could give the MU an extra 1st Level spell for their "0-Level training" (apprenticeship). This WON'T break the game and your MU will enjoy the game more.

[kyoryu]

Yeah, Gary's assumption was that a session was one delve into and out of the dungeon.

That worked well for a number of reasons - one of the big ones was that his table (and thus the assumptions of the game) were that the "campaign" was a lot more people than showed up for any given session. So each session would start with figuring out who was bringing what characters, and getting everyone back to a "known" state was important for that to work well.

So the two were used interchangeably because they were interchangeable.

Now, if you've got one consistent party, that's not as important - in that case, of the two, I'd keep "when you return to town" because ultimately the point in B/X is to get the treasure out of the dungeon.