Would you play Advanced D&D (1st edition) again?

Just curious. 🙂 Would you play in a session/mini-campaign/extended campaign of the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons if you could?

I’d be happy to – although I’m also eagerly awaiting 4e!

10 thoughts on “Would you play Advanced D&D (1st edition) again?

  1. The problem I have with AD&D is that I never really got to learn the rules (aside from THACO). =)

    But I have some spare modules here, shrink-wrapped, in case anyone wants them for Christmas. =)

    1. Which ones do you have, Charles? There’s more than a few I’m still missing…
      🙂

      With what system/game did you start role-playing with?

      Cheers,
      Merric

      1. I’m not at home right now but based on my emails from the guy who didn’t get it, here’s what’s still at home:

        The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (x1)

        Red Arrow, Black Shield (x2)

        Legacy of Blood (x1)

        Red Sonja Unconquered (x1)

        Isle of the Ape (x2)

        Dwellers of the Forbidden City (x1)
        vault of the Drow (x1)

        The Aerie of the Slave Lords (x1)

        Descent into the Depths of the Earth (x1)

        Slave Pits of the Undercity (x2)
        Secret of the Slavers Stockade (x2)
        The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (x2)

        I did start with AD&D although my first experience was with the First Quest box which really wasn’t intensive with the rules and was only good for levels 1-3. Since I was the one who bought it, I was the GM and it lasted for all of one session. Later on, I found a gaming group but they were the ones familiar with the rules and I just played the Ftr and they explained to me how things worked (we were playing Temple of Elemental Evil at the time so you know… character death!). When 3E came out, I managed to snag someone’s copy of the PHB.

  2. Wow.

    On the one hand, it would be simplify. Very easy. With the right DM, it could be good.

    On the other hand, what was bad about 1E was really bad. The five saves pop to mind. The fact that a dwarf fighter and a human fighter are the same.

    I guess, for me, it would come down to the DM. If I liked them, yes. If not, no.

    Probably not very helpful but there it is.

    edg

    1. Yeah. I mean, for me, I’m almost always the DM. I’ve really lost track with what it’s like being a player. (Martin, who’s been DMing me in an Iron Heroes game, will tell you exactly how problematic I can be as a player… Rules Lawyer, Roleplayer and Attention Hog. Guess what you need to be a good DM? ;))

      So, running AD&D? Piece of cake. Oh, you can only hit something with a sword rather than do some fancy manuevers or use a skill? Well, bad luck. I’ve got all these monsters to run that can do cool stuff.

      Playing AD&D as a player? Hmm. There’s a reason I play magic-users – the variety! I really hate 1st-level MUs, though…

      1. See, that’s the thing. To some people, doing a fancy manuever was possible in 1E because they faked it. It sounded cool, so they let it happen.

        So, that’s why I say it’s up to the DM. Is he going to be a strict rules lawyer and now allow any creativity? No thanks. Will we get to play around a bit and make characters unique, making sure no character is too powerful and all have fun? Sign me up!

        I am not a good player either. I finally accepted that a few years ago. I try and make DMing fun for myself and go from there.

        edg

  3. Back around March, I actually started a 1E AD&D game (the name of my livejournal, Different Experience Tables, was originally intended to be used as the title of an Actual Play thread concerning the game). I had a bit of nostalgia for the game, but I also wanted to play it by the rules. Weapon vs. armor types, henchmen and hirelings as standard additions to the party, the whole nine yards.

    It didn’t work out.

    That weapon vs. armor bit? Well, I figured I could have the humanoids participate in that. After all, the MM listed what % of each group would use which weapon. But, at least from a 3E mindset, it didn’t work. For a lot of monsters, their damage would be listed as “2-7 or by weapon type,” but none of the weapons typically used by that race would do 2-7. And what about shields? Certainly some of the weapons used by goblins must be two handed for them, but their illustration has them using shields… and their AC makes no mention of goblins with shields vs. goblins without. Oh, and don’t get me started on ogres, supposedly with 18+ strength, yet doing 1-10 damage (or by weapon type).

    So, I bent and prodded the illogical parts into some sort of sense and we got started. The first foray into the sewers resulted in a random encounter with one of the ogres living there. A tough fight, but the PCs won. A few more fights, a few more encounters, and they kept winning. But, between low XP value on the monsters and my crappy treasure rolls, second level was a long ways off.

    And then a mistake was made. The PCs misinterpreted the warnings that a group of goblins was putting up and stumbled into the territory of the troglodytes. Several trogs emerging from camoflage, lots of strength lost (and, oh the joy of consulting the strength table to find out what had changed), and it was a TPK.

    There were things I could have done differently. I could have been lighter on the rules, and more forgiving on the encounters. But, a by the book, where the dice lie experience was what I promised, and what I delivered.

    So, at least as a DM, I found I’m very happy with 3E (and looking forward to 4E as well).

    1. Interestingly, my first *real* experience in using henchmen actually came under 3e! I was DMing a party of 9 – 5 players, 4 cohorts. That was a lot of fun, actually. (It was a very 1e-style game).

      The weapon-type rules drove me batty in the day. We didn’t use them, but I was constantly trying to work them out. (Even more so for Initiative). Later, I discovered that Gary Gygax didn’t use them either… he was talked into including them by one of his friends (along with the Psionic rules, and a bunch of other things). I think they’re the rule he really wishes he’d left out!

      I spent a lot of time on Dragonsfoot in the early days of 3e – I have a terrible reputation there as a 1e-hater and a 3e-lover – but it really helped me get to know AD&D a lot better.

      I did manage to run a couple of one-off sessions of AD&D later. Here’s one I ran for my 33rd birthday. (That’s almost two years ago now…)
      http://www.3rdedition.org/merricb/musings/2005/12/returning-to-add-white-plume-mountain.htm

  4. Starting info: I have never played 1E, although I have picked up in the past few years a compelte set of AD&D core rules, and some other hardbacks like the MM2, FF, UA and Oriental Adventures. I enjoy reading them just for inspiration, to see how the game has changed (some would object if I used the word “evolved”, but that’s usually how I see it 😉 ) or to enjoy Gygax’s distinct prose style. My first play was with late BD&D (The black box/red dragon set, mid nineties) and I only really played “properly” with 3E.

    With that preamble: yes, I would play 1E. I have toyed with running it as a one-off for my 3E group as a sort of “history lesson”, and if someone offered me the chance to actually try it out as a player, I’d be happy to give it a spin. I’d love to use it to run a distinctly 1E game, with mega-dungeons, a wilderness more dangerous than the dungeons, high lethality combats and the like – sice I’ve been running a 3.X campaign for three and a bit years, I wouldn’t want to do just “more of the same, but with slightly different rules”!

    I’m not sure if I’d necesarilly jump at the chance to play it in a more long-term campaign, though. I’d certainly give it a go for a few weeks and see how I felt, and I think it would help if the other players were big into it. Like any game (arguably, slightly more so?) I think the GM could make it for me – but a little bit of me, used to the 3E style of character generation flexibility and unified mechanics, is slightly wary of playing a full campaign in a game where those things are drastically cut back. I guess I wouldn’t know until I gave it a shot, eh?

    George Q

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