The initial module, B2, had a monster that could only be hit my magical weapons and if it hit, removed experience levels (no save).
We approached all things as if they were about to jump at us. That chest... I stab it, does it move? If you're not careful, the ceiling will try to eat you, or the floor.
Then when we found potions, the only way to know what it was (quickly) was to to taste it and see if there's an effect. You should see the ingredients of these potions, I wonder if the ichor of the Beholder had some sweetening effect, or what the skin of a lycanthrope tastes like.
Don’t forget that magic cloaks, rings, often do not add their bonus to AC when wearing magic armor.
that really sucks for trying to get that AC to be less than 0
Assuming you don’t have that 18 Dex
That's right. The power creep was low back then.
It wasn't only in AC, but HP as well. A Fighter has a maximum of 9d10 (before Con adjustments) before only recieving +3 per level. IF (a big IF), a character made it to 15th level, the average HP is about 60 (before any Con adjusts which could be anything from +9 to +36 - and then adjusted by the age of the character).
The initial module, B2, had a monster that could only be hit my magical weapons and if it hit, removed experience levels (no save).
We approached all things as if they were about to jump at us. That chest... I stab it, does it move? If you're not careful, the ceiling will try to eat you, or the floor.
Then when we found potions, the only way to know what it was (quickly) was to to taste it and see if there's an effect. You should see the ingredients of these potions, I wonder if the ichor of the Beholder had some sweetening effect, or what the skin of a lycanthrope tastes like.
Indeed. Old school D&D is defined in a lot of different ways by different people, but one thing that is ubiquitous is how the game was a lot more dangerous in the past, both because of the rules of the game itself and the adventures/content created for it. When you think about it, B2 being this "harsh" is kind of crazy given that its basically intended for 1st level characters and novice players.
That however is kind of the contradiction of B/X, its claim is that "this is the version of the game for new, inexperienced players and DM's", but what it actually is, is the greatest challenge to run as a DM and one of the most unforgiving and toughest challenges for players. There is no question in my mind that the ultimate test of skill and attention to detail as a player is going to be playing B/X Raw using an adventure module like B2. The chances of you navigating that adventure and that system successfully without dying repeatedly is slim. Its a brutal game.
The thing about this old school approach is that its not a mechanical challenge, but a narrative one. The difficulty of the system and the adventures written for it was that you had to pay extreme attention to detail. What equipment you brought, how much research you did, who you brought with you (followers and henchmen)... all these sorts of precautions most of which were driven by narrative actions players took were key to success. If you just kicked down doors and approached it like a combat simulator (encounter by encounter) your chances of success where practically ZERO.
This approach of just "taking on the encounters" is really kind of the standard way to play in modern D&D, there being a basic assumption that encounters are designed "for your level" and essentially rigged in your favor is why modern gamers and the modern approach simply does not work in old school gaming. Nothing in old school D&D is tailored to level... there are adventures made for X or Y level, but really has nothing to do with how encounters building works in the game or how adventures were written.
That said I do see a change in modern DM's approach to adventure building and handling of encounter building. This idea that things should be tailored to level is in many ways becoming less and less common every day, which I think is clear evidence that this style of play while simple and fun, is insufficiently challenging and satisfying to modern players as it is to old school players. Modern gamers are still just gamers and once the honeymoon period is over, that easy mode starts to lose its luster and players are looking for greater challenges.
For some that means going back to old school D&D, for others it means adjusting 5e play and adventures to make them more challenging. One of the chief complaints about 5e however is that there is this "tilt" that takes place where encounters are easy-easy-easy and one minor adjustment and suddenly your dead. It's hard to create a curve of difficulty and there is an assumption that there should be. The reality however is that there wasn't that in old school D&D either, but there was more emphasis on avoiding fights, running from fights etc.. that players were willing to contend with this idea and where ok with avoidance and caution. In modern D&D players I still find that once an encounter starts... once there is an opportunity to fight or even once a fight starts, the idea of avoiding it or running is deemed "impossible". The assumption still is that once swords are drawn that you fight to the death and so encounters even with some of the adapted philosophy modern players are embracing is still that the encounter should be balanced for them and appropriate to their level.
I think as time goes on and D&D players become more flexible and experienced, which at this stage is very common (many players that started playing D&D with 5th edition have 5-10 years of experience), the philosophy and approach to playing D&D will continue to adapt.
I foresee an inevitable crossroad where old school gamers and modern gamers will see eye to eye in the very near future on this topic of challenge/difficulty of the game. We already see that modern gamers have adapted a lot of other philosophies from old school era D&D, like the focus on narrative role-playing for example. What it could be, what it should be is something that is coming into alignment between these two very different gaming cultures. 5e is certainly capable of being a very challenging game and I think games like Shadowdark have shown the flexibility of the system. While there will always be contentious hold outs, if you can convert old guard like me to modern systems, I assure you, you can convert anyone.
What would be nice is to see Wizard of the Coast pump the breaks on their shenanigans because a lot of the non-sense that goes on with discussions about D&D is also about who you support with your gaming money. Its painful to give WotC money when they act like jackelopes all the time.
The initial module, B2, had a monster that could only be hit my magical weapons and if it hit, removed experience levels (no save).
We approached all things as if they were about to jump at us. That chest... I stab it, does it move? If you're not careful, the ceiling will try to eat you, or the floor.
Then when we found potions, the only way to know what it was (quickly) was to to taste it and see if there's an effect. You should see the ingredients of these potions, I wonder if the ichor of the Beholder had some sweetening effect, or what the skin of a lycanthrope tastes like.
Indeed. Old school D&D is defined in a lot of different ways by different people, but one thing that is ubiquitous is how the game was a lot more dangerous in the past, both because of the rules of the game itself and the adventures/content created for it. When you think about it, B2 being this "harsh" is kind of crazy given that its basically intended for 1st level characters and novice players.
That however is kind of the contradiction of B/X, its claim is that "this is the version of the game for new, inexperienced players and DM's", but what it actually is, is the greatest challenge to run as a DM and one of the most unforgiving and toughest challenges for players. There is no question in my mind that the ultimate test of skill and attention to detail as a player is going to be playing B/X Raw using an adventure module like B2. The chances of you navigating that adventure and that system successfully without dying repeatedly is slim. Its a brutal game.
The thing about this old school approach is that its not a mechanical challenge, but a narrative one. The difficulty of the system and the adventures written for it was that you had to pay extreme attention to detail. What equipment you brought, how much research you did, who you brought with you (followers and henchmen)... all these sorts of precautions most of which were driven by narrative actions players took were key to success. If you just kicked down doors and approached it like a combat simulator (encounter by encounter) your chances of success where practically ZERO.
This approach of just "taking on the encounters" is really kind of the standard way to play in modern D&D, there being a basic assumption that encounters are designed "for your level" and essentially rigged in your favor is why modern gamers and the modern approach simply does not work in old school gaming. Nothing in old school D&D is tailored to level... there are adventures made for X or Y level, but really has nothing to do with how encounters building works in the game or how adventures were written.
That said I do see a change in modern DM's approach to adventure building and handling of encounter building. This idea that things should be tailored to level is in many ways becoming less and less common every day, which I think is clear evidence that this style of play while simple and fun, is insufficiently challenging and satisfying to modern players as it is to old school players. Modern gamers are still just gamers and once the honeymoon period is over, that easy mode starts to lose its luster and players are looking for greater challenges.
For some that means going back to old school D&D, for others it means adjusting 5e play and adventures to make them more challenging. One of the chief complaints about 5e however is that there is this "tilt" that takes place where encounters are easy-easy-easy and one minor adjustment and suddenly your dead. It's hard to create a curve of difficulty and there is an assumption that there should be. The reality however is that there wasn't that in old school D&D either, but there was more emphasis on avoiding fights, running from fights etc.. that players were willing to contend with this idea and where ok with avoidance and caution. In modern D&D players I still find that once an encounter starts... once there is an opportunity to fight or even once a fight starts, the idea of avoiding it or running is deemed "impossible". The assumption still is that once swords are drawn that you fight to the death and so encounters even with some of the adapted philosophy modern players are embracing is still that the encounter should be balanced for them and appropriate to their level.
I think as time goes on and D&D players become more flexible and experienced, which at this stage is very common (many players that started playing D&D with 5th edition have 5-10 years of experience), the philosophy and approach to playing D&D will continue to adapt.
I foresee an inevitable crossroad where old school gamers and modern gamers will see eye to eye in the very near future on this topic of challenge/difficulty of the game. We already see that modern gamers have adapted a lot of other philosophies from old school era D&D, like the focus on narrative role-playing for example. What it could be, what it should be is something that is coming into alignment between these two very different gaming cultures. 5e is certainly capable of being a very challenging game and I think games like Shadowdark have shown the flexibility of the system. While there will always be contentious hold outs, if you can convert old guard like me to modern systems, I assure you, you can convert anyone.
What would be nice is to see Wizard of the Coast pump the breaks on their shenanigans because a lot of the non-sense that goes on with discussions about D&D is also about who you support with your gaming money. Its painful to give WotC money when they act like jackelopes all the time.
I run an 1e AD&D game. I just finished up playing in a Basic Fantasy game where the campaign ended because the DM left the country. I still DM in a 5e game, though not as much as I have in the past. I have DM'ed ShadowDark recently, and still play in a Pathfinder 2e game. So I have quite a bit of experience with different game systems. AD&D 1e is a vastly superior system compared to the current edition, for all the reasons you stated. Players realized their PC's could very well die just to bad luck, and would most certainly die if the players did not recognize that running away was a necessary option in the toolkit.
But I really can't envision how the old guard and the new players will ever compromise on the vision of the game. The older editions are such a radical departure from the newest edition. And the player mindset is utterly different.
This is a myth, often promulgated to gatekeep and be dismissive of "new" players. It is, and always has been, false.
Player mindset is not a product of the edition - it is a product of the player. There are plenty of "old guard" players who enjoyed story-based games, heavy in roleplaying, light in death, and all the other attributes commonly ascribed to "new players" by those spreading this myth. In fact, some of the very first D&D books explicitly make reference to this - the AD&D DMG, for example, explicitly notes that there are D&D parties who enjoy death-light games, and DMs could give out significant numbers of resurrection items so death is not a major hurdle. Likewise, there are plenty of "new" players who like brutal dungeon crawls, high rates of death, and all the things the self-styled "old guard" tries to say "new players" dislike."
The problem is not that the game has changed - it is that people's access to other viewpoints has. Due to the internet, the self-styled "old guard" players who pretend their way of playing was the only way folks played historically now can see all the other types of games folks are running. No longer are they stuck in their insular little groups playing only with people like them--they can see entire other worlds that they never saw before (because those folks were playing in their own little isolated groups).
Here's the other thing this group of "old guard" players do not like to admit, even though it is objectively true - they can pretend all they like that the game is "too friendly" and "does not have any risk", but the real problem? They are just bad at balancing 5e. Even with death saves, multiattack creatures, even low-level monsters, can easily take out a downed player. Very simple tweaks to game design can instantly make 5e as deadly as the DM wants (just like AD&D recommended very simple tweaks to make the game as safe as the DM wants).
Obviously if you do not know how to DM a system very well, the system is not going to do what you want it to. Not really fair to blame the system for the DM's being bad at that system, though that misappropriation of fault seems to be what happens.
This is a myth, often promulgated to gatekeep and be dismissive of "new" players. It is, and always has been, false.
Player mindset is not a product of the edition - it is a product of the player. There are plenty of "old guard" players who enjoyed story-based games, heavy in roleplaying, light in death, and all the other attributes commonly ascribed to "new players" by those spreading this myth. In fact, some of the very first D&D books explicitly make reference to this - the AD&D DMG, for example, explicitly notes that there are D&D parties who enjoy death-light games, and DMs could give out significant numbers of resurrection items so death is not a major hurdle. Likewise, there are plenty of "new" players who like brutal dungeon crawls, high rates of death, and all the things the self-styled "old guard" tries to say "new players" dislike."
The problem is not that the game has changed - it is that people's access to other viewpoints has. Due to the internet, the self-styled "old guard" players who pretend their way of playing was the only way folks played historically now can see all the other types of games folks are running. No longer are they stuck in their insular little groups playing only with people like them--they can see entire other worlds that they never saw before (because those folks were playing in their own little isolated groups).
Here's the other thing this group of "old guard" players do not like to admit, even though it is objectively true - they can pretend all they like that the game is "too friendly" and "does not have any risk", but the real problem? They are just bad at balancing 5e. Even with death saves, multiattack creatures, even low-level monsters, can easily take out a downed player. Very simple tweaks to game design can instantly make 5e as deadly as the DM wants (just like AD&D recommended very simple tweaks to make the game as safe as the DM wants).
Obviously if you do not know how to DM a system very well, the system is not going to do what you want it to. Not really fair to blame the system for the DM's being bad at that system, though that misappropriation of fault seems to be what happens.
Your comments, and using YOUR quote, are "utterly false".
The game is radically different today than what the founders envisioned. Why don't you ask people like Rob Kuntz what he thinks of the newest edition. Or read his comments about it. I mean, what would he know? He was only employee #6 at TSR, and was there for the very first game. His comments about modern D&D are readily available. And as for 5e being more deadly than 1e, killing PC's in ANY game is easy. However, comparing the newest edition to 1e is like comparing a plush toy to a hand grenade. Show me a rule in the current edition that wipes out a PC level with the touch of certain monsters. Show me a rule in the newest edition where failing a poison save from a spider autokills a PC. Show me the rules that talk about 0 level Hirelngs, with 2 HP. The older editions were far far more rich in detail, and risk. The game was scary, and that was what made it fun.
This is a myth, often promulgated to gatekeep and be dismissive of "new" players. It is, and always has been, false.
Player mindset is not a product of the edition - it is a product of the player. There are plenty of "old guard" players who enjoyed story-based games, heavy in roleplaying, light in death, and all the other attributes commonly ascribed to "new players" by those spreading this myth. In fact, some of the very first D&D books explicitly make reference to this - the AD&D DMG, for example, explicitly notes that there are D&D parties who enjoy death-light games, and DMs could give out significant numbers of resurrection items so death is not a major hurdle. Likewise, there are plenty of "new" players who like brutal dungeon crawls, high rates of death, and all the things the self-styled "old guard" tries to say "new players" dislike."
The problem is not that the game has changed - it is that people's access to other viewpoints has. Due to the internet, the self-styled "old guard" players who pretend their way of playing was the only way folks played historically now can see all the other types of games folks are running. No longer are they stuck in their insular little groups playing only with people like them--they can see entire other worlds that they never saw before (because those folks were playing in their own little isolated groups).
Here's the other thing this group of "old guard" players do not like to admit, even though it is objectively true - they can pretend all they like that the game is "too friendly" and "does not have any risk", but the real problem? They are just bad at balancing 5e. Even with death saves, multiattack creatures, even low-level monsters, can easily take out a downed player. Very simple tweaks to game design can instantly make 5e as deadly as the DM wants (just like AD&D recommended very simple tweaks to make the game as safe as the DM wants).
Obviously if you do not know how to DM a system very well, the system is not going to do what you want it to. Not really fair to blame the system for the DM's being bad at that system, though that misappropriation of fault seems to be what happens.
The key difference between these two epoch's of gaming is that old school gamers want to find the narrative solutions, not play the system to find the mechanical solutions. As you point out, old school DM's are just bad at balancing 5e. Your kind of missing the point of the thesis. Old school gamers don't want their to be any such thing. The point of 1e's deadliness was to be a narrative challenge to the players, to find clever solutions outside of the context of mechanics. Once your making do or die death save's, you have already failed at that, your just reaping the consequences at that point. Modern gamers see those types of mechanics as "broken" because of the low odds of survival, not recognizing that the game is all about what happens up to that point.
You can see it in conversation differences in how old school gamers react to gaming situations like that compared to modern gamers. In an old school group if you tell someone "got killed on a save or die trap", the reaction isn't to complain about the unfair mechanics, its to ask "how the hell did you get into that situation!?". Old school gamers know that if your making a save like that, you screwed up before then. Modern gamers just see the mechanics, the odds, the unfairness and balance issue with that.
My point is that I think modern gamers are starting to realize how different the game plays out when you have lethal dangers like that in the game, when your playing in a game mechanically stacked against you. It changes how people think, how they approach the narrative of the game, how they prepare, what they talk about. In a word, they don't rely on the DM "Knowing how to balance the game" to survive it.
We are already seeing a lot more material being published on the DM Guild in this vein. Dangerous adventures, deadly traps, deadly puzzles, deadly monsters. The concept of "balanced encounters" is being challenged in modern gaming and I disagree with JustAfarmer, I do think we will see a day when these two communities will start to see eye to eye, because the preference is shifting. The players your describing that have this preference of "low or no death" games, are falling out of favor. Players want to be intellectually challenged and these are players that are narratively motivated, so its a natural shift for modern gamers who love strong narrative games to want the challenge of the game to be found in story, not mechanical manipulation... The very foundation of old-school gaming.
And I also disagree that 5e is not capable of that function. It is, Im doing it in my game, my games are deadly as hell and my players have to think or die.
I'd be tempted to play Basic with my Rules Cyclopedia, but adding attack bonuses and flipping AC.
But AD&D is just going too far. Too many niche rules and odd design decisions. Too many rules I ignored even back in my 2e years.
Yeah, I know that JustAFarmer and guys like him (which kind of includes me) will usually unanimously agree that 1 AD&D is without question the single best D&D system and perhaps even the best RPG ever made, but there is this MASSIVE caveat for that to be true to someone. I think you have to see and sort of embrace the game rules as a philosophical concept, more than objective truth. The AD&D DMG is like a bible, a book of poems, or a book of stories, not a how-to manual. It requires interpretation and is actually meant to be used as a guide to understand what the game is about more than how to play it. You are meant to derive some sort of sense or impression of rules from it, but every person who reads it is going to find their own version of the rules between the pages. Gygax took the writing of the Dungeon Masters Guide, as a guide, quite literally, he didn't really write a rulebook, at least not by the modern definition of the word.
Most of the things that people see as odd designs, strange omissions or weirdly excessive focuses are actually what make this such a brilliant game and I could probably write an entire volume of books on my interpretation of each section, each page of the DMG and talk endlessly about all the "why" theories behind the writing.
This kind of obsession about a game and the things behind it, is the driving force of fans of 1e AD&D, but it's not something that can really be passed on or even made relatable, it either finds you or it doesn't and that is neither a good or a bad thing, it just is. 1e AD&D fans are almost like a weird cult that share this insanely niche understanding of the game and I think the only bad thing about it is that some members of our little cult (and I'm guilty of this as well so not pointing any fingers here) get a little over-excited and quite elitist about this conversation about our beloved 1e AD&D.
All I can say is that when I read JustAFarmers comments which I know come off as gatekeeping and elitist, all I see is just an obsessed fan and I can't help but give a nod of understanding. I do think gamers like that (which includes me), should practice a bit more restraint with our words and I have actually been working on that a lot of late, so much in fact, that I have gotten personalized comments from other 1e AD&D fans who shall remain nameless accusing me of being a liar and abandoning the ideals of the OSR as if I have "left the cult" because I have chosen to be a bit more neutral, compromising and less elitist.
My point here is that B/X and BECMI is a version of 1e D&D that is effectively pre-translated with a lot of the really weird niche stuff you find in AD&D kicked out and I think unless you have the bug for AD&D and your interest is just in trying old-school 1e gaming, i think most people in the OSR would agree that B/X or BECMI is the way to do it. I would personally further suggest Old School Essentials if you're interested in B/X BECMI because not only is it a pre-translated version that is much better edited, but it includes the modern conversions as part of the book, doing the work for you. For example Ascending Armor class and To Hit roll conversion from THAC0 are fixed for you which includes all the monster conversions. Rules that use odd and unclear language are fixed and the game comes with an Advanced Fantasy Genre book, which gives you more of the traditional AD&D classes and the race-class split rules with the same clarity and the same balance. It's a great place to start if you're interested in trying 1e and you don't want to deal with the weirdness of the language of the original books.
Of course you could just go Shadowdark, same playstyle as B/X-BECMI but fundamentally using 5e as a core.
I'd be tempted to play Basic with my Rules Cyclopedia, but adding attack bonuses and flipping AC.
But AD&D is just going too far. Too many niche rules and odd design decisions. Too many rules I ignored even back in my 2e years.
Yeah, I know that JustAFarmer and guys like him (which kind of includes me) will usually unanimously agree that 1 AD&D is without question the single best D&D system and perhaps even the best RPG ever made, but there is this MASSIVE caveat for that to be true to someone. I think you have to see and sort of embrace the game rules as a philosophical concept, more than objective truth. The AD&D DMG is like a bible, a book of poems, or a book of stories, not a how-to manual. It requires interpretation and is actually meant to be used as a guide to understand what the game is about more than how to play it. You are meant to derive some sort of sense or impression of rules from it, but every person who reads it is going to find their own version of the rules between the pages. Gygax took the writing of the Dungeon Masters Guide, as a guide, quite literally, he didn't really write a rulebook, at least not by the modern definition of the word.
Most of the things that people see as odd designs, strange omissions or weirdly excessive focuses are actually what make this such a brilliant game and I could probably write an entire volume of books on my interpretation of each section, each page of the DMG and talk endlessly about all the "why" theories behind the writing.
This kind of obsession about a game and the things behind it, is the driving force of fans of 1e AD&D, but it's not something that can really be passed on or even made relatable, it either finds you or it doesn't and that is neither a good or a bad thing, it just is. 1e AD&D fans are almost like a weird cult that share this insanely niche understanding of the game and I think the only bad thing about it is that some members of our little cult (and I'm guilty of this as well so not pointing any fingers here) get a little over-excited and quite elitist about this conversation about our beloved 1e AD&D.
All I can say is that when I read JustAFarmers comments which I know come off as gatekeeping and elitist, all I see is just an obsessed fan and I can't help but give a nod of understanding. I do think gamers like that (which includes me), should practice a bit more restraint with our words and I have actually been working on that a lot of late, so much in fact, that I have gotten personalized comments from other 1e AD&D fans who shall remain nameless accusing me of being a liar and abandoning the ideals of the OSR as if I have "left the cult" because I have chosen to be a bit more neutral, compromising and less elitist.
My point here is that B/X and BECMI is a version of 1e D&D that is effectively pre-translated with a lot of the really weird niche stuff you find in AD&D kicked out and I think unless you have the bug for AD&D and your interest is just in trying old-school 1e gaming, i think most people in the OSR would agree that B/X or BECMI is the way to do it. I would personally further suggest Old School Essentials if you're interested in B/X BECMI because not only is it a pre-translated version that is much better edited, but it includes the modern conversions as part of the book, doing the work for you. For example Ascending Armor class and To Hit roll conversion from THAC0 are fixed for you which includes all the monster conversions. Rules that use odd and unclear language are fixed and the game comes with an Advanced Fantasy Genre book, which gives you more of the traditional AD&D classes and the race-class split rules with the same clarity and the same balance. It's a great place to start if you're interested in trying 1e and you don't want to deal with the weirdness of the language of the original books.
Of course you could just go Shadowdark, same playstyle as B/X-BECMI but fundamentally using 5e as a core.
Fair points.
Gary Gygax was a genius, but desperately needed an editor. The DMG and PHB needed significant alteration, and by that I mean the material needs to be relocated in different areas. Things like a magical ring failing 25% of the time for a Halfling, buried deep in the book. And the Surprise rules...oh man. But the concepts are wonderful.
I'd be tempted to play Basic with my Rules Cyclopedia, but adding attack bonuses and flipping AC.
But AD&D is just going too far. Too many niche rules and odd design decisions. Too many rules I ignored even back in my 2e years.
Of course you could just go Shadowdark, same playstyle as B/X-BECMI but fundamentally using 5e as a core.
I didn't discover B/X, BECMI or Rules Cyclopedia (I lump it as "Basic") until decades after I first learned of 1e. I am probably in the minority who actually liked the Immortals game, although it was math and detail intensive when it came to casting spells and what not. The later updated and simplified version, "Wrath of the Immortals" was worth checking out, but never got to play.
I did check out Shadow Dark, but I wasn't impressed. It was more 5e, than it was OSR. And I didn't like that it only had four classes. No Monk? Come on. 😂
I'd be tempted to play Basic with my Rules Cyclopedia, but adding attack bonuses and flipping AC.
But AD&D is just going too far. Too many niche rules and odd design decisions. Too many rules I ignored even back in my 2e years.
Of course you could just go Shadowdark, same playstyle as B/X-BECMI but fundamentally using 5e as a core.
I didn't discover B/X, BECMI or Rules Cyclopedia (I lump it as "Basic") until decades after I first learned of 1e. I am probably in the minority who actually liked the Immortals game, although it was math and detail intensive when it came to casting spells and what not. The later updated and simplified version, "Wrath of the Immortals" was worth checking out, but never got to play.
I did check out Shadow Dark, but I wasn't impressed. It was more 5e, than it was OSR. And I didn't like that it only had four classes. No Monk? Come on. 😂
Shadowdark definitely takes the idea of streamlining the concept of basic D&D to an extreme and it has a very isolated focus placed squarely on the Dungeon Survival sub-genre (or playstyle if you will), which is its own unique thing. One might argue that if you try to do anything outside of a Dungeon with that system there really is nothing in the way of rules support, the game kind of assumes that either the same rules apply or that anything outside of a dungeon experience is "free form" roleplaying.
B/X had a lot more gamist concepts and support like Dungeon Adventure and Wilderness Adventure rules and of course if you are talking about BECMI you had high-level expanded things like Mass Combat, Dominion Rules, Weapon Mastery, skill sub-systems. BECMI as a game system is quite advanced once you added in the CMI.
I'd be tempted to play Basic with my Rules Cyclopedia, but adding attack bonuses and flipping AC.
But AD&D is just going too far. Too many niche rules and odd design decisions. Too many rules I ignored even back in my 2e years.
Yeah, I know that JustAFarmer and guys like him (which kind of includes me) will usually unanimously agree that 1 AD&D is without question the single best D&D system and perhaps even the best RPG ever made, but there is this MASSIVE caveat for that to be true to someone. I think you have to see and sort of embrace the game rules as a philosophical concept, more than objective truth. The AD&D DMG is like a bible, a book of poems, or a book of stories, not a how-to manual. It requires interpretation and is actually meant to be used as a guide to understand what the game is about more than how to play it. You are meant to derive some sort of sense or impression of rules from it, but every person who reads it is going to find their own version of the rules between the pages. Gygax took the writing of the Dungeon Masters Guide, as a guide, quite literally, he didn't really write a rulebook, at least not by the modern definition of the word.
Most of the things that people see as odd designs, strange omissions or weirdly excessive focuses are actually what make this such a brilliant game and I could probably write an entire volume of books on my interpretation of each section, each page of the DMG and talk endlessly about all the "why" theories behind the writing.
This kind of obsession about a game and the things behind it, is the driving force of fans of 1e AD&D, but it's not something that can really be passed on or even made relatable, it either finds you or it doesn't and that is neither a good or a bad thing, it just is. 1e AD&D fans are almost like a weird cult that share this insanely niche understanding of the game and I think the only bad thing about it is that some members of our little cult (and I'm guilty of this as well so not pointing any fingers here) get a little over-excited and quite elitist about this conversation about our beloved 1e AD&D.
All I can say is that when I read JustAFarmers comments which I know come off as gatekeeping and elitist, all I see is just an obsessed fan and I can't help but give a nod of understanding. I do think gamers like that (which includes me), should practice a bit more restraint with our words and I have actually been working on that a lot of late, so much in fact, that I have gotten personalized comments from other 1e AD&D fans who shall remain nameless accusing me of being a liar and abandoning the ideals of the OSR as if I have "left the cult" because I have chosen to be a bit more neutral, compromising and less elitist.
My point here is that B/X and BECMI is a version of 1e D&D that is effectively pre-translated with a lot of the really weird niche stuff you find in AD&D kicked out and I think unless you have the bug for AD&D and your interest is just in trying old-school 1e gaming, i think most people in the OSR would agree that B/X or BECMI is the way to do it. I would personally further suggest Old School Essentials if you're interested in B/X BECMI because not only is it a pre-translated version that is much better edited, but it includes the modern conversions as part of the book, doing the work for you. For example Ascending Armor class and To Hit roll conversion from THAC0 are fixed for you which includes all the monster conversions. Rules that use odd and unclear language are fixed and the game comes with an Advanced Fantasy Genre book, which gives you more of the traditional AD&D classes and the race-class split rules with the same clarity and the same balance. It's a great place to start if you're interested in trying 1e and you don't want to deal with the weirdness of the language of the original books.
Of course you could just go Shadowdark, same playstyle as B/X-BECMI but fundamentally using 5e as a core.
Fair points.
Gary Gygax was a genius, but desperately needed an editor. The DMG and PHB needed significant alteration, and by that I mean the material needs to be relocated in different areas. Things like a magical ring failing 25% of the time for a Halfling, buried deep in the book. And the Surprise rules...oh man. But the concepts are wonderful.
And yes, ShadowDark is a great game.
People often forget how new AD&D was. We understand how to write technical manuals because the DMG was so convoluted.
If you compare the early games from the TSR stable (including Boot Hill and Star Frontiers), it was up to the DM to figure it all out. In the modern games, (and there's nothing wrong with this) are all in the same book for the players. When the players had access to one book that repeatedly said '... your DM will have details on this...' all the players had to do was play, the DM did all the hard work. It's a little more collaborative now and players will point to a rule and say "This is how it works..." (Good or Bad? who knows)
I enjoy DMing the modern game, I do bring a few old tricks with me that work fine for new players, but I had an experienced player question what I was doing and I knew how to play the game.
I still love AD&D 1e, particularly, the version pre-1985. I still run a game and I use about 85 to 90% of the rules as written, which is as close to RAW as you can get (in my mind). I ran tournament modules back in the early 80s and we used to get one-pagers on tips and hints, that I still use in today's world. If we had any questions, we could contact the team directly and they encouraged it.
I hope there's a D&Dv10 and I want the game to continue. The modern game is so different to the earlier versions, they are almost separate games (aside from very few key concepts or terms), and I don't always understand how folks had beef with the older game. It's very well balanced, probably by accident over design, but it's still mad-genius.
I play it, I write about it in a magazine, and I have a YouTube channel which seems to have the attention of a few people. This game is not going anywhere, and that's the way I like it.
The thing about Thac0 that still strikes me today is that when we first played 1st edition B/X in about 85' is about all I remember about it. By around 86-87 we had reversed all the math and started using a To Hit Roll which was effectively introduced in 3e. I think I was about 13-14 when we figured this out and we never used THAC0 again after that. I don't really get why anyone would still use it today even if you're still running 1e.
Technically speaking other than an entry in the appendix of the 1st. Edition DMG that gave the roll required by monsters to hit AC 0 the first appearance of THAC0 was in the Master Rules set from '85. THAC0 was otherwise absent in 1st. Edition.
It was absent in B/X (Moldvay/Cook) and was absent in the Basic Rules and Expect Rules and Companion Rules sets.
It wasn't really until 2nd. Edition—excluding the Master Rules and Immortals Rules sets—when THAC0 would be commonly used to resolve combat in place of those old to-hit tables.
My groups used THAC0 throughout the '90s. The math wasn't at all difficult but there was a certain esoteric charm to it that we appreciated.
These days even when running a variant of B/X I use ascending AC however.
There are certain aspects of 5e that are still opposed to old school gamist and narrative ideas, but there is a modularity of the design space where you can make massive changes and bring the playstyle in line with different era's and genres of play. Shadowdark for example shows us an example of how you can take 5e and turn it into a classic dungeon crawling (survival) adventure game. It proves that you can for example remove the skill system entirely and the game is still perfectly functional, you can eliminate sub-classes or limit spell lists. All of these things can be done to the game and it remains a stable system that works well.
ShadowDark is a near perfect adaptation of 5E. Out of curiosity: Do you use it? Or do you use 5E? How do you run 5E? To get it compatible with those old school sensibilities?
That however is kind of the contradiction of B/X, its claim is that "this is the version of the game for new, inexperienced players and DM's", but what it actually is, is the greatest challenge to run as a DM and one of the most unforgiving and toughest challenges for players. There is no question in my mind that the ultimate test of skill and attention to detail as a player is going to be playing B/X Raw using an adventure module like B2. The chances of you navigating that adventure and that system successfully without dying repeatedly is slim. Its a brutal game.
Interestingly enough Edward Bluddworth had a video just the other day insisting the opposite is true. That it is much easier to DM older editions of the game and OSR games than it is to DM 5E.
I was ten when I picked up Mentzer's 1983 revisions of B/X. And I read and understood the rules and ran the game with ease. Many a ten year old today might pick up the Starter Set and manage the same. The full rules? I've watched many close to my age struggle to remember how things work in 5E the game now suffers from such colossal rules bloat. In comparison the Basic and Expert rulebooks were 64 pages in length.
I have considered donating my OSE books to my school's library. A solid clone of B/X. And one I am sure the average fifth or sixth grader will be perfectly capable of getting it. I will be running a different variant of these old rules for my next game. I tried running 5E and while the players enjoyed themselves I found it to be the least rewarding of systems I have ever run.
Here's the other thing this group of "old guard" players do not like to admit, even though it is objectively true - they can pretend all they like that the game is "too friendly" and "does not have any risk", but the real problem? They are just bad at balancing 5e. Even with death saves, multiattack creatures, even low-level monsters, can easily take out a downed player. Very simple tweaks to game design can instantly make 5e as deadly as the DM wants (just like AD&D recommended very simple tweaks to make the game as safe as the DM wants).
How many players' characters have died in the games you have run?
ShadowDark is a near perfect adaptation of 5E. Out of curiosity: Do you use it? Or do you use 5E? How do you run 5E? To get it compatible with those old school sensibilities?
Good question, with a big answer, big enough for a book actually, which is exactly what I'm working on. I should thank you because I was struggling with what to call it and I think "Old School Sensibilities" will definitely be that book's title.
On a very high level without getting into too much detail, there are two things that are characteristically different between old school D&D and modern D&D "playstyle" if we are not getting into specific playstyles like Dungeon Crawling and Dungeon Survival for example.
Skills vs. no skills: This is a key thing and one very simple way to bring 5e into old school style gaming is to just cut skills out of the game entirely.
Danger of death - Very simple to fix in 5e. Just change it to 1 missed death save = death.
Now I think there is a lot more to it, enough to write a 32 page book, but that goes into detail about certain classes, building up archetypes, making spells and feats more narratively focused rather than mechanically focused and of course controlling power creep at higher levels. The book Im writing focuses more on those key elements, but on a very simple level those two things get you more than half way there.
That however is kind of the contradiction of B/X, its claim is that "this is the version of the game for new, inexperienced players and DM's", but what it actually is, is the greatest challenge to run as a DM and one of the most unforgiving and toughest challenges for players. There is no question in my mind that the ultimate test of skill and attention to detail as a player is going to be playing B/X Raw using an adventure module like B2. The chances of you navigating that adventure and that system successfully without dying repeatedly is slim. Its a brutal game.
Interestingly enough Edward Bluddworth had a video just the other day insisting the opposite is true. That it is much easier to DM older editions of the game and OSR games than it is to DM 5E.
I was ten when I picked up Mentzer's 1983 revisions of B/X. And I read and understood the rules and ran the game with ease. Many a ten year old today might pick up the Starter Set and manage the same. The full rules? I've watched many close to my age struggle to remember how things work in 5E the game now suffers from such colossal rules bloat. In comparison the Basic and Expert rulebooks were 64 pages in length.
I have considered donating my OSE books to my school's library. A solid clone of B/X. And one I am sure the average fifth or sixth grader will be perfectly capable of getting it. I will be running a different variant of these old rules for my next game. I tried running 5E and while the players enjoyed themselves I found it to be the least rewarding of systems I have ever run.
I saw that video and he makes some good points but his entire thesis is about knowing the subtle art of things like DM adjudication is easy. The basic premise of B/X is that "you can just make stuff up, you are the DM" and this just somehow works out and is presumed to be an inherited skill we all have. Its simply not true.
It's not easy at all. It's actually super hard for most people and the entire evolution of D&D since 1e has been squarely focused on trying to create architecture for the game that instructs you on how to do this well but more importantly creating mechanics so that you don't have to.
Systems like 5e are certainly more complex mechanically, but the instructions are clear and if you follow them, you will have a very fun and very stable game. So it's only as hard as reading and understanding the rules. It's not super easy but it's quite within the range of the average person to learn the rules.
To run 1e well, you have to learn the nuanced philosophy of running a free-form, interactive story game in which the mechanics are designed to kill characters outright if they do not act with narrative precision. Going through an adventure like B2 without characters dying left and right takes master-level role-playing out of a group. It's an insanely difficult adventure and that is the starting point of the game. Old school gamers don't acknowledge this, especially DM's who view characters dying left and right as a normal part of the game, not really recognizing that a character dying ruins the game for most people. They don't want that to be a norm at a game session but it very much is. In a B/X game a character or two will die every session, its quite normal unless you playing with a very elite squad of extremely focused and conscious players. A skill that takes years to learn and decades to master.
Edward is a salesmen, he wants to sell the idea that old-school D&D is easy and fun, to a degree I agree with him. The rules are easy to understand the game is super fun. But being successful running and playing 1e B/X, that requires tremendous experience and skill to pull of.
It's a dangerous world out there.
The initial module, B2, had a monster that could only be hit my magical weapons and if it hit, removed experience levels (no save).
We approached all things as if they were about to jump at us. That chest... I stab it, does it move? If you're not careful, the ceiling will try to eat you, or the floor.
Then when we found potions, the only way to know what it was (quickly) was to to taste it and see if there's an effect. You should see the ingredients of these potions, I wonder if the ichor of the Beholder had some sweetening effect, or what the skin of a lycanthrope tastes like.
That's right. The power creep was low back then.
It wasn't only in AC, but HP as well. A Fighter has a maximum of 9d10 (before Con adjustments) before only recieving +3 per level. IF (a big IF), a character made it to 15th level, the average HP is about 60 (before any Con adjusts which could be anything from +9 to +36 - and then adjusted by the age of the character).
Indeed. Old school D&D is defined in a lot of different ways by different people, but one thing that is ubiquitous is how the game was a lot more dangerous in the past, both because of the rules of the game itself and the adventures/content created for it. When you think about it, B2 being this "harsh" is kind of crazy given that its basically intended for 1st level characters and novice players.
That however is kind of the contradiction of B/X, its claim is that "this is the version of the game for new, inexperienced players and DM's", but what it actually is, is the greatest challenge to run as a DM and one of the most unforgiving and toughest challenges for players. There is no question in my mind that the ultimate test of skill and attention to detail as a player is going to be playing B/X Raw using an adventure module like B2. The chances of you navigating that adventure and that system successfully without dying repeatedly is slim. Its a brutal game.
The thing about this old school approach is that its not a mechanical challenge, but a narrative one. The difficulty of the system and the adventures written for it was that you had to pay extreme attention to detail. What equipment you brought, how much research you did, who you brought with you (followers and henchmen)... all these sorts of precautions most of which were driven by narrative actions players took were key to success. If you just kicked down doors and approached it like a combat simulator (encounter by encounter) your chances of success where practically ZERO.
This approach of just "taking on the encounters" is really kind of the standard way to play in modern D&D, there being a basic assumption that encounters are designed "for your level" and essentially rigged in your favor is why modern gamers and the modern approach simply does not work in old school gaming. Nothing in old school D&D is tailored to level... there are adventures made for X or Y level, but really has nothing to do with how encounters building works in the game or how adventures were written.
That said I do see a change in modern DM's approach to adventure building and handling of encounter building. This idea that things should be tailored to level is in many ways becoming less and less common every day, which I think is clear evidence that this style of play while simple and fun, is insufficiently challenging and satisfying to modern players as it is to old school players. Modern gamers are still just gamers and once the honeymoon period is over, that easy mode starts to lose its luster and players are looking for greater challenges.
For some that means going back to old school D&D, for others it means adjusting 5e play and adventures to make them more challenging. One of the chief complaints about 5e however is that there is this "tilt" that takes place where encounters are easy-easy-easy and one minor adjustment and suddenly your dead. It's hard to create a curve of difficulty and there is an assumption that there should be. The reality however is that there wasn't that in old school D&D either, but there was more emphasis on avoiding fights, running from fights etc.. that players were willing to contend with this idea and where ok with avoidance and caution. In modern D&D players I still find that once an encounter starts... once there is an opportunity to fight or even once a fight starts, the idea of avoiding it or running is deemed "impossible". The assumption still is that once swords are drawn that you fight to the death and so encounters even with some of the adapted philosophy modern players are embracing is still that the encounter should be balanced for them and appropriate to their level.
I think as time goes on and D&D players become more flexible and experienced, which at this stage is very common (many players that started playing D&D with 5th edition have 5-10 years of experience), the philosophy and approach to playing D&D will continue to adapt.
I foresee an inevitable crossroad where old school gamers and modern gamers will see eye to eye in the very near future on this topic of challenge/difficulty of the game. We already see that modern gamers have adapted a lot of other philosophies from old school era D&D, like the focus on narrative role-playing for example. What it could be, what it should be is something that is coming into alignment between these two very different gaming cultures. 5e is certainly capable of being a very challenging game and I think games like Shadowdark have shown the flexibility of the system. While there will always be contentious hold outs, if you can convert old guard like me to modern systems, I assure you, you can convert anyone.
What would be nice is to see Wizard of the Coast pump the breaks on their shenanigans because a lot of the non-sense that goes on with discussions about D&D is also about who you support with your gaming money. Its painful to give WotC money when they act like jackelopes all the time.
I run an 1e AD&D game. I just finished up playing in a Basic Fantasy game where the campaign ended because the DM left the country. I still DM in a 5e game, though not as much as I have in the past. I have DM'ed ShadowDark recently, and still play in a Pathfinder 2e game. So I have quite a bit of experience with different game systems. AD&D 1e is a vastly superior system compared to the current edition, for all the reasons you stated. Players realized their PC's could very well die just to bad luck, and would most certainly die if the players did not recognize that running away was a necessary option in the toolkit.
But I really can't envision how the old guard and the new players will ever compromise on the vision of the game. The older editions are such a radical departure from the newest edition. And the player mindset is utterly different.
This is a myth, often promulgated to gatekeep and be dismissive of "new" players. It is, and always has been, false.
Player mindset is not a product of the edition - it is a product of the player. There are plenty of "old guard" players who enjoyed story-based games, heavy in roleplaying, light in death, and all the other attributes commonly ascribed to "new players" by those spreading this myth. In fact, some of the very first D&D books explicitly make reference to this - the AD&D DMG, for example, explicitly notes that there are D&D parties who enjoy death-light games, and DMs could give out significant numbers of resurrection items so death is not a major hurdle. Likewise, there are plenty of "new" players who like brutal dungeon crawls, high rates of death, and all the things the self-styled "old guard" tries to say "new players" dislike."
The problem is not that the game has changed - it is that people's access to other viewpoints has. Due to the internet, the self-styled "old guard" players who pretend their way of playing was the only way folks played historically now can see all the other types of games folks are running. No longer are they stuck in their insular little groups playing only with people like them--they can see entire other worlds that they never saw before (because those folks were playing in their own little isolated groups).
Here's the other thing this group of "old guard" players do not like to admit, even though it is objectively true - they can pretend all they like that the game is "too friendly" and "does not have any risk", but the real problem? They are just bad at balancing 5e. Even with death saves, multiattack creatures, even low-level monsters, can easily take out a downed player. Very simple tweaks to game design can instantly make 5e as deadly as the DM wants (just like AD&D recommended very simple tweaks to make the game as safe as the DM wants).
Obviously if you do not know how to DM a system very well, the system is not going to do what you want it to. Not really fair to blame the system for the DM's being bad at that system, though that misappropriation of fault seems to be what happens.
Your comments, and using YOUR quote, are "utterly false".
The game is radically different today than what the founders envisioned. Why don't you ask people like Rob Kuntz what he thinks of the newest edition. Or read his comments about it. I mean, what would he know? He was only employee #6 at TSR, and was there for the very first game. His comments about modern D&D are readily available. And as for 5e being more deadly than 1e, killing PC's in ANY game is easy. However, comparing the newest edition to 1e is like comparing a plush toy to a hand grenade. Show me a rule in the current edition that wipes out a PC level with the touch of certain monsters. Show me a rule in the newest edition where failing a poison save from a spider autokills a PC. Show me the rules that talk about 0 level Hirelngs, with 2 HP. The older editions were far far more rich in detail, and risk. The game was scary, and that was what made it fun.
The key difference between these two epoch's of gaming is that old school gamers want to find the narrative solutions, not play the system to find the mechanical solutions. As you point out, old school DM's are just bad at balancing 5e. Your kind of missing the point of the thesis. Old school gamers don't want their to be any such thing. The point of 1e's deadliness was to be a narrative challenge to the players, to find clever solutions outside of the context of mechanics. Once your making do or die death save's, you have already failed at that, your just reaping the consequences at that point. Modern gamers see those types of mechanics as "broken" because of the low odds of survival, not recognizing that the game is all about what happens up to that point.
You can see it in conversation differences in how old school gamers react to gaming situations like that compared to modern gamers. In an old school group if you tell someone "got killed on a save or die trap", the reaction isn't to complain about the unfair mechanics, its to ask "how the hell did you get into that situation!?". Old school gamers know that if your making a save like that, you screwed up before then. Modern gamers just see the mechanics, the odds, the unfairness and balance issue with that.
My point is that I think modern gamers are starting to realize how different the game plays out when you have lethal dangers like that in the game, when your playing in a game mechanically stacked against you. It changes how people think, how they approach the narrative of the game, how they prepare, what they talk about. In a word, they don't rely on the DM "Knowing how to balance the game" to survive it.
We are already seeing a lot more material being published on the DM Guild in this vein. Dangerous adventures, deadly traps, deadly puzzles, deadly monsters. The concept of "balanced encounters" is being challenged in modern gaming and I disagree with JustAfarmer, I do think we will see a day when these two communities will start to see eye to eye, because the preference is shifting. The players your describing that have this preference of "low or no death" games, are falling out of favor. Players want to be intellectually challenged and these are players that are narratively motivated, so its a natural shift for modern gamers who love strong narrative games to want the challenge of the game to be found in story, not mechanical manipulation... The very foundation of old-school gaming.
And I also disagree that 5e is not capable of that function. It is, Im doing it in my game, my games are deadly as hell and my players have to think or die.
1e? It's been awhile, but where did you read that, in the PHB or DMG?
I'd be tempted to play Basic with my Rules Cyclopedia, but adding attack bonuses and flipping AC.
But AD&D is just going too far. Too many niche rules and odd design decisions. Too many rules I ignored even back in my 2e years.
Yeah, I know that JustAFarmer and guys like him (which kind of includes me) will usually unanimously agree that 1 AD&D is without question the single best D&D system and perhaps even the best RPG ever made, but there is this MASSIVE caveat for that to be true to someone. I think you have to see and sort of embrace the game rules as a philosophical concept, more than objective truth. The AD&D DMG is like a bible, a book of poems, or a book of stories, not a how-to manual. It requires interpretation and is actually meant to be used as a guide to understand what the game is about more than how to play it. You are meant to derive some sort of sense or impression of rules from it, but every person who reads it is going to find their own version of the rules between the pages. Gygax took the writing of the Dungeon Masters Guide, as a guide, quite literally, he didn't really write a rulebook, at least not by the modern definition of the word.
Most of the things that people see as odd designs, strange omissions or weirdly excessive focuses are actually what make this such a brilliant game and I could probably write an entire volume of books on my interpretation of each section, each page of the DMG and talk endlessly about all the "why" theories behind the writing.
This kind of obsession about a game and the things behind it, is the driving force of fans of 1e AD&D, but it's not something that can really be passed on or even made relatable, it either finds you or it doesn't and that is neither a good or a bad thing, it just is. 1e AD&D fans are almost like a weird cult that share this insanely niche understanding of the game and I think the only bad thing about it is that some members of our little cult (and I'm guilty of this as well so not pointing any fingers here) get a little over-excited and quite elitist about this conversation about our beloved 1e AD&D.
All I can say is that when I read JustAFarmers comments which I know come off as gatekeeping and elitist, all I see is just an obsessed fan and I can't help but give a nod of understanding. I do think gamers like that (which includes me), should practice a bit more restraint with our words and I have actually been working on that a lot of late, so much in fact, that I have gotten personalized comments from other 1e AD&D fans who shall remain nameless accusing me of being a liar and abandoning the ideals of the OSR as if I have "left the cult" because I have chosen to be a bit more neutral, compromising and less elitist.
My point here is that B/X and BECMI is a version of 1e D&D that is effectively pre-translated with a lot of the really weird niche stuff you find in AD&D kicked out and I think unless you have the bug for AD&D and your interest is just in trying old-school 1e gaming, i think most people in the OSR would agree that B/X or BECMI is the way to do it. I would personally further suggest Old School Essentials if you're interested in B/X BECMI because not only is it a pre-translated version that is much better edited, but it includes the modern conversions as part of the book, doing the work for you. For example Ascending Armor class and To Hit roll conversion from THAC0 are fixed for you which includes all the monster conversions. Rules that use odd and unclear language are fixed and the game comes with an Advanced Fantasy Genre book, which gives you more of the traditional AD&D classes and the race-class split rules with the same clarity and the same balance. It's a great place to start if you're interested in trying 1e and you don't want to deal with the weirdness of the language of the original books.
Of course you could just go Shadowdark, same playstyle as B/X-BECMI but fundamentally using 5e as a core.
Fair points.
Gary Gygax was a genius, but desperately needed an editor. The DMG and PHB needed significant alteration, and by that I mean the material needs to be relocated in different areas. Things like a magical ring failing 25% of the time for a Halfling, buried deep in the book. And the Surprise rules...oh man. But the concepts are wonderful.
And yes, ShadowDark is a great game.
I didn't discover B/X, BECMI or Rules Cyclopedia (I lump it as "Basic") until decades after I first learned of 1e. I am probably in the minority who actually liked the Immortals game, although it was math and detail intensive when it came to casting spells and what not. The later updated and simplified version, "Wrath of the Immortals" was worth checking out, but never got to play.
I did check out Shadow Dark, but I wasn't impressed. It was more 5e, than it was OSR. And I didn't like that it only had four classes. No Monk? Come on. 😂
Shadowdark definitely takes the idea of streamlining the concept of basic D&D to an extreme and it has a very isolated focus placed squarely on the Dungeon Survival sub-genre (or playstyle if you will), which is its own unique thing. One might argue that if you try to do anything outside of a Dungeon with that system there really is nothing in the way of rules support, the game kind of assumes that either the same rules apply or that anything outside of a dungeon experience is "free form" roleplaying.
B/X had a lot more gamist concepts and support like Dungeon Adventure and Wilderness Adventure rules and of course if you are talking about BECMI you had high-level expanded things like Mass Combat, Dominion Rules, Weapon Mastery, skill sub-systems. BECMI as a game system is quite advanced once you added in the CMI.
People often forget how new AD&D was. We understand how to write technical manuals because the DMG was so convoluted.
If you compare the early games from the TSR stable (including Boot Hill and Star Frontiers), it was up to the DM to figure it all out. In the modern games, (and there's nothing wrong with this) are all in the same book for the players. When the players had access to one book that repeatedly said '... your DM will have details on this...' all the players had to do was play, the DM did all the hard work. It's a little more collaborative now and players will point to a rule and say "This is how it works..." (Good or Bad? who knows)
I enjoy DMing the modern game, I do bring a few old tricks with me that work fine for new players, but I had an experienced player question what I was doing and I knew how to play the game.
I still love AD&D 1e, particularly, the version pre-1985. I still run a game and I use about 85 to 90% of the rules as written, which is as close to RAW as you can get (in my mind). I ran tournament modules back in the early 80s and we used to get one-pagers on tips and hints, that I still use in today's world. If we had any questions, we could contact the team directly and they encouraged it.
I hope there's a D&Dv10 and I want the game to continue. The modern game is so different to the earlier versions, they are almost separate games (aside from very few key concepts or terms), and I don't always understand how folks had beef with the older game. It's very well balanced, probably by accident over design, but it's still mad-genius.
I play it, I write about it in a magazine, and I have a YouTube channel which seems to have the attention of a few people. This game is not going anywhere, and that's the way I like it.
Technically speaking other than an entry in the appendix of the 1st. Edition DMG that gave the roll required by monsters to hit AC 0 the first appearance of THAC0 was in the Master Rules set from '85. THAC0 was otherwise absent in 1st. Edition.
It was absent in B/X (Moldvay/Cook) and was absent in the Basic Rules and Expect Rules and Companion Rules sets.
It wasn't really until 2nd. Edition—excluding the Master Rules and Immortals Rules sets—when THAC0 would be commonly used to resolve combat in place of those old to-hit tables.
My groups used THAC0 throughout the '90s. The math wasn't at all difficult but there was a certain esoteric charm to it that we appreciated.
These days even when running a variant of B/X I use ascending AC however.
ShadowDark is a near perfect adaptation of 5E. Out of curiosity: Do you use it? Or do you use 5E? How do you run 5E? To get it compatible with those old school sensibilities?
Interestingly enough Edward Bluddworth had a video just the other day insisting the opposite is true. That it is much easier to DM older editions of the game and OSR games than it is to DM 5E.
I was ten when I picked up Mentzer's 1983 revisions of B/X. And I read and understood the rules and ran the game with ease. Many a ten year old today might pick up the Starter Set and manage the same. The full rules? I've watched many close to my age struggle to remember how things work in 5E the game now suffers from such colossal rules bloat. In comparison the Basic and Expert rulebooks were 64 pages in length.
I have considered donating my OSE books to my school's library. A solid clone of B/X. And one I am sure the average fifth or sixth grader will be perfectly capable of getting it. I will be running a different variant of these old rules for my next game. I tried running 5E and while the players enjoyed themselves I found it to be the least rewarding of systems I have ever run.
How many players' characters have died in the games you have run?
Good question, with a big answer, big enough for a book actually, which is exactly what I'm working on. I should thank you because I was struggling with what to call it and I think "Old School Sensibilities" will definitely be that book's title.
On a very high level without getting into too much detail, there are two things that are characteristically different between old school D&D and modern D&D "playstyle" if we are not getting into specific playstyles like Dungeon Crawling and Dungeon Survival for example.
Skills vs. no skills: This is a key thing and one very simple way to bring 5e into old school style gaming is to just cut skills out of the game entirely.
Danger of death - Very simple to fix in 5e. Just change it to 1 missed death save = death.
Now I think there is a lot more to it, enough to write a 32 page book, but that goes into detail about certain classes, building up archetypes, making spells and feats more narratively focused rather than mechanically focused and of course controlling power creep at higher levels. The book Im writing focuses more on those key elements, but on a very simple level those two things get you more than half way there.
I saw that video and he makes some good points but his entire thesis is about knowing the subtle art of things like DM adjudication is easy. The basic premise of B/X is that "you can just make stuff up, you are the DM" and this just somehow works out and is presumed to be an inherited skill we all have. Its simply not true.
It's not easy at all. It's actually super hard for most people and the entire evolution of D&D since 1e has been squarely focused on trying to create architecture for the game that instructs you on how to do this well but more importantly creating mechanics so that you don't have to.
Systems like 5e are certainly more complex mechanically, but the instructions are clear and if you follow them, you will have a very fun and very stable game. So it's only as hard as reading and understanding the rules. It's not super easy but it's quite within the range of the average person to learn the rules.
To run 1e well, you have to learn the nuanced philosophy of running a free-form, interactive story game in which the mechanics are designed to kill characters outright if they do not act with narrative precision. Going through an adventure like B2 without characters dying left and right takes master-level role-playing out of a group. It's an insanely difficult adventure and that is the starting point of the game. Old school gamers don't acknowledge this, especially DM's who view characters dying left and right as a normal part of the game, not really recognizing that a character dying ruins the game for most people. They don't want that to be a norm at a game session but it very much is. In a B/X game a character or two will die every session, its quite normal unless you playing with a very elite squad of extremely focused and conscious players. A skill that takes years to learn and decades to master.
Edward is a salesmen, he wants to sell the idea that old-school D&D is easy and fun, to a degree I agree with him. The rules are easy to understand the game is super fun. But being successful running and playing 1e B/X, that requires tremendous experience and skill to pull of.