While I did own the red box first, I cut my teeth on 1e. Nothing but fond memories. We never bothered with segments, spell casting times, or weapon speeds, so that kept combats moving along smoothly.
Sometimes that’s the best part is making the rules fit with the group you are playing with. Taking components from different editions that don’t exist anymore or making up your own for better flow and to maximize the experience.
Best explanation of THAC0 ever. Not even Gary used the weapon speed factors. I asked Luke Gygax about it. He said they were a concession to the wargamer crowd. Great stuff! --Professor DM, Dungeoncraft.
1977.. our group tried using the speed factors and it was just insanely, stupidly complicated. It became obvious when the Wizard's casting times pushed him 2 turns behind in one combat. The casting times and speed factors had to go.
01:15 Skills, in the guise of non-weapon proficiencies, were introduced to AD&D 1e in the Oriental Adventures (1985) rules (primarily to cover social interactions), and various other supplements (e.g. Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and Wilderness Survival Guide) included suggested non-weapon proficiences suitable for those particular environments. OA also had weapon proficiencies and specialization.
1st edition Ad&D is where I started at the age of 5. I made a human cleric because half-elves could only take 5 levels in cleric, and half-orcs were terrible unless you were a fighter/assassin. No other races could be clerics, so human it was. I loved mapping dungeons by description on graph paper and healing my party while swinging a mace, but 2nd edition came out right around that time (1989) and felt better to us. Also, 2nd edition relaxed racial class restrictions and removed gender-based ability score caps. I fell in love with playing my 2nd edition gnome illusionist/thief and have tried every edition since. I would never choose to go back to 1st edition, but I would gladly play some 2nd edition if my group ever wants to play a retro game.
This is the edition I grew up with although my friends and I played it wrong. 😆 if we were confused about a rule we just home brewed it. Still have my Toys r us books which were $8 cover price!!!
THAC0 gets a bad rap, but it is not that complicated and you did not need a table. It was used to get rid of the table. THAC0-ac = number you need to roll to hit or meet Thaco with yout roll + ac if you like addition better. This was modified by your str mod, but that is -3 to 3. It gets equally confusing in 5e if you start saying to hit is roll + mod -ac to get a positive number in 5e and start messing with the formula that way. This is a situation of people doing a flip through of a history book and being like, "toilet paper was not invented in 1880, they must have gone around with dirty butts!"
@@NorseFoundry in your review you said it had to be looked up on a table, though. The whole point of THAC0 was to get rid of the table while giving players a to hit number. Like the save system, it was just putting all the math into the character creation and set up so you can just know you need x to hit the orc, y to hit the hobgoblin, and z to hit the ogre. The only difficulty came with dms who did not want to tell the ac of the monster, and that was largely a thing with 3e or later players because you saw more variety in monster stats and guessing what this weird thing could do became a thing. Hence my comparison of reimagining history without context.
No no, apologies. The 1e system uses tables, I said that the armor class 0 system would become THAC0 for people to relate the ideas that have heard of THAC0 but not the 1e table system - separate ideas. Sorry for the confusion.
it will never cease to be funny how people react to the prototype of TTRPGs not making the fantasy concession of female humans having the same strength as males like it's the biggest sin commited by that mess of a game.
Just so the younger players can know we weren't all a bunch of misogynists in the early 80's, when we played 1e our DM house-ruled that male PCs all got +1 to Strength and Constitution, and female PCs got +1 to Dexterity and Charisma. While it did provide for some gender balance, as you can probably guess it also encouraged a lot of min-maxing. No one wanted to be a female martial character, and of course anyone playing a thief was always female.
The rules have always been a guide not a requirement. As you mentioned your group adjusted them to fit your own game and I think that is the true beauty of DND is it can be whatever the group wants it to be even if it leads to min/maxing 😀
The main problem with 1E was that game balance between the classes was badly affected by ability scores; this was even more true in 2E. It was also affected by the rate of experience progress. For example, a slow-progressing game with moderate ability scores massively favored thieves. I played a lot of Druids in 1E because of the fast spell progression, and the amazing utility of the shapechange (Wild Shape) ability gained at 7th Level. Level limits were a problem for non-humans; you had to think hard about how far the characters would progress. Bards were indeed insane - uniquely they gained up to 30 Hit Dice! That's 5-7 d10 as a Fighter and 23 d6 as a Bard. If your Bard can (admittedly improbably) manage a Con bonus on all those dice you end up with a huge number of Hit Points.
Yes for sure a lot more had to go into planning of how you wanted to develop your character and how quickly you would be able to get there depending on the campaign.
Without original "White Box" pamphlet version, we don't get AD&D, which is just the original with expansions. Without AD&D, we don't get 2nd Edition. Without 2nd Edition, we don't get 3rd Edition or 3.5. Without 3.5 we don't get 4E. Without the rebellion against 4E, we don't get 5E. So, without AD&D, the real basis of the modern game, we don't have D&D. Having started back in the days of THE WHITE BOX (and I still have some of the dice from 3 White Box sets) I know that this is all fact.
I liked Advanced D&D E1. I played when advanced just came out and we had players/DMs who knew basic. So it was always a hybrid. Which soon became Advanced rules with some of the basic stuff. More character building if I remember correctly. That was a long time ago. We didn't have sex restrictions or some other limits. Combat I think is over explained and made a little confusing at first. I can't remember how it read before. But, everyone grasped it by the first game day. READ 5E if never played and it's a lot more confusing. Being honest. Action, reactions, bonus action. And still have initiative and AC. To me not as different on concept depending how looking at it and trying to explain it. I think combat when a lot smoother. We still had to wait our turn but it was more like. Roll and do this and done. Not the let's make characters super heroes compared to the original game. I think spells were even smoother to use or something back then. Some just seems to much more workable quickly. I honestly can't remember the limits on spells and how it worked back then. we played a LOT. almost every weekend and we would do the module that day. Or 2 at the most. we had lots of 6 to 8 hour sessions. So it seemed strange that I hear how it took years to build up to level 20. We had 4 DMs who played and 2 or 3 others off and on. I loved writing modules back then. I quit for a long time. I was doing a story that was a parody to the Alice in Wonderland. After I finished that my goal was to do a story that orcus and asmodeas were actually working together to stay in power. I was also starting to think about connection modules/game together. I loved Strahd back then. So in early games they can find a letter from there. Or A map that mentions there. Even a book on a shelf. Lot's of little things that later if they hear the name or place it is connected. Which eventually was going to lead to the demon/devil alliance. Was going to do the 9 hells as a story. and the Abyss as another. Then something together. Which I thought of using Tiamat and Biomet in. Which could of been used to tie whole thing together. Dragons trying to put an end to the whole thing. Already was going to have a town that was dragons in human form. Where half the town was dragons who cared about the humans they knew. Never did get them all finished and sold all my books and stories. The person's wife left and he killed himself. I think she destroyed everything. I still regret not keeping it all. Wanted to see about eventually publishing some. Or run parts of it thru Dragon Magazines we had back then.
@@NorseFoundry Depending on the dm we did mix Basic and AD&D rules especially monsters. But to be really weird some monsters had multiple ACs depending on what you were aiming for. Fun fact the first three Ad&d books were all total about 500 pages total. I think the new 2024 PHB is going to be what 320?
Ok, had to watch because of the click bait. AD&D is still, by far, my favourite version. I pretty much only dislike Psionics. THAC0 was 2e, 1e was hit tables. While I like 5e, I dislike more from it than 1e. Yes, please review OD&D. That's the version I cut my teeth on. Great video. Liked and Subscribed.
I said that the system would become known as THAC0 - the term was coined in 1985, I believe. But thank you! It took quite a bit of digging to put together on my part haha.
@@NorseFoundry Yes, you did say that. But sort of like the look-up tables. The tables were eliminated and became the THAC0. 2e took away all but one of the "20" to-hit numbers against the lower ACs, and the suggestions from 1e that the other "20" hits be natural, natural with magic weapons, etc. Simplifying combat by eliminating look-up tables. Again, great video.
Yes, I think we’re agreeing on the same point haha. I mentioned THAC0 so that people who have heard of it but not the 1e to hit tables would understand it was based on the same decreasing AC scale. Sorry for the confusion!
THAC0 *WAS* in AD&D 1e but only in the DMG Appendix E: "Alphabetical Recapitulation of Monsters". It was seen primarily as a tool for the DM as players only had to worry about one character and could just easily refer to a table that they'd write on their character sheet so it was easy, whilst the DM had a load of monsters to worry about. (Many people had "invented" it - or something similar - independently before the DMG was published anyway as it was useful.)
Norse Foundry's bonus is that it's always good to see jacked guys playing D&D. Edit: I vote more for 2E pros and cons but I bet a lot of guys wanna see OD&D pros and cons.
I like your video. However, I want to point out that ADnD 1e had no bonus spells due to high stats. A first level magic-user (i.e. wizard) had one spell per day only, even with intelligence 18. Later, comming with Unearthed Arcana, a magic-user could skip his one first level spell for four zero level cantrips. 😊
Hey! Thanks for the info! I was actually pointing towards Clerics and therefore Druids. Once their WIS meets or exceeds 16 gain bonus spells for exceptional wisdom (pg 11 PHB 1977)
i just hate how pointless the thief was. No matter how people try to defend it, the thief was so ass it makes no sense why they even bothered putting them in the game
@CajunCatguy good luck trying to even disarm that trap as a thief. A fighter would likely just tank that trap. Yes taps were more dangerous in classic 1st edition, yet, the fighter would likely still eat it up just fine
@CajunCatguy our well known barbarian was indeed a thief. And characters like Jack and the beanstalk and other swashbucklers are in the rogue class. But unfortunately, the game rules don’t make roleplaying those characters possible as a human thief class. Did the fighter use a 10 foot pole?? And sure u can dual class. But by the time ur a competent fighter with thief levels, you’ve basically already experienced a couple years (unless u have friends that play daily with u) as a fighter irl :/ doesn’t really make me feel like I’m playing a thief by the time I dual class
@CajunCatguy lol that’s funny. I mean that’s never really how I played my fighters. I always played a bit smarter. But I grew up in the 90s. Played a lot of 1st and 2nd edition DM’d by my old head cousin. His interpretation of the rules made them basically impossible to survive if u tried using thief skills at low levels. So most of his friends and my brother and I, would start from fighter then switch to thief. Also influenced by modern fictions , my fighters tended to not just be “big dumb guy swing sword” lol. (Ps, Srry for unnecessary backstory. Just thought maybe it would help see from my perspective I guess. I’m enjoying our discussion)
While I did own the red box first, I cut my teeth on 1e. Nothing but fond memories. We never bothered with segments, spell casting times, or weapon speeds, so that kept combats moving along smoothly.
Sometimes that’s the best part is making the rules fit with the group you are playing with. Taking components from different editions that don’t exist anymore or making up your own for better flow and to maximize the experience.
Best explanation of THAC0 ever. Not even Gary used the weapon speed factors. I asked Luke Gygax about it. He said they were a concession to the wargamer crowd. Great stuff! --Professor DM, Dungeoncraft.
I keep telling people that’s where it came from and I keep getting yelled at 😂 Luke’s a great guy. Thanks for the comment, love your content!
1977.. our group tried using the speed factors and it was just insanely, stupidly complicated.
It became obvious when the Wizard's casting times pushed him 2 turns behind in one combat. The casting times and speed factors had to go.
@@fhuber7507 and then there' Rolemaster ... where all casters start 2 rounds behind.
01:15 Skills, in the guise of non-weapon proficiencies, were introduced to AD&D 1e in the Oriental Adventures (1985) rules (primarily to cover social interactions), and various other supplements (e.g. Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and Wilderness Survival Guide) included suggested non-weapon proficiences suitable for those particular environments.
OA also had weapon proficiencies and specialization.
1st edition Ad&D is where I started at the age of 5. I made a human cleric because half-elves could only take 5 levels in cleric, and half-orcs were terrible unless you were a fighter/assassin. No other races could be clerics, so human it was. I loved mapping dungeons by description on graph paper and healing my party while swinging a mace, but 2nd edition came out right around that time (1989) and felt better to us. Also, 2nd edition relaxed racial class restrictions and removed gender-based ability score caps. I fell in love with playing my 2nd edition gnome illusionist/thief and have tried every edition since. I would never choose to go back to 1st edition, but I would gladly play some 2nd edition if my group ever wants to play a retro game.
This is the edition I grew up with although my friends and I played it wrong. 😆 if we were confused about a rule we just home brewed it. Still have my Toys r us books which were $8 cover price!!!
THAC0 gets a bad rap, but it is not that complicated and you did not need a table. It was used to get rid of the table. THAC0-ac = number you need to roll to hit or meet Thaco with yout roll + ac if you like addition better. This was modified by your str mod, but that is -3 to 3. It gets equally confusing in 5e if you start saying to hit is roll + mod -ac to get a positive number in 5e and start messing with the formula that way.
This is a situation of people doing a flip through of a history book and being like, "toilet paper was not invented in 1880, they must have gone around with dirty butts!"
Not at all! I was comparing the logic and ease between the two systems.
@@NorseFoundry in your review you said it had to be looked up on a table, though. The whole point of THAC0 was to get rid of the table while giving players a to hit number. Like the save system, it was just putting all the math into the character creation and set up so you can just know you need x to hit the orc, y to hit the hobgoblin, and z to hit the ogre.
The only difficulty came with dms who did not want to tell the ac of the monster, and that was largely a thing with 3e or later players because you saw more variety in monster stats and guessing what this weird thing could do became a thing. Hence my comparison of reimagining history without context.
No no, apologies. The 1e system uses tables, I said that the armor class 0 system would become THAC0 for people to relate the ideas that have heard of THAC0 but not the 1e table system - separate ideas. Sorry for the confusion.
@@rynowatcher Most of us just wrote AC 10 to - 10 on paper and put the corresponding number next to it. So "DM I hit AC Neg 3" (5e Ac 23).
Dwarves can be Clerics, but not Magic Users.
01:35 Only fighters were eligible to have 18/XX exceptional strength, keeping a differentiation of the classes.
it will never cease to be funny how people react to the prototype of TTRPGs not making the fantasy concession of female humans having the same strength as males like it's the biggest sin commited by that mess of a game.
Just so the younger players can know we weren't all a bunch of misogynists in the early 80's, when we played 1e our DM house-ruled that male PCs all got +1 to Strength and Constitution, and female PCs got +1 to Dexterity and Charisma. While it did provide for some gender balance, as you can probably guess it also encouraged a lot of min-maxing. No one wanted to be a female martial character, and of course anyone playing a thief was always female.
The rules have always been a guide not a requirement. As you mentioned your group adjusted them to fit your own game and I think that is the true beauty of DND is it can be whatever the group wants it to be even if it leads to min/maxing 😀
nice overview.
The main problem with 1E was that game balance between the classes was badly affected by ability scores; this was even more true in 2E. It was also affected by the rate of experience progress. For example, a slow-progressing game with moderate ability scores massively favored thieves. I played a lot of Druids in 1E because of the fast spell progression, and the amazing utility of the shapechange (Wild Shape) ability gained at 7th Level. Level limits were a problem for non-humans; you had to think hard about how far the characters would progress.
Bards were indeed insane - uniquely they gained up to 30 Hit Dice! That's 5-7 d10 as a Fighter and 23 d6 as a Bard. If your Bard can (admittedly improbably) manage a Con bonus on all those dice you end up with a huge number of Hit Points.
Yes for sure a lot more had to go into planning of how you wanted to develop your character and how quickly you would be able to get there depending on the campaign.
I feel like you are combining some 2e rules with advanced rules, BUT i would have to look at those rules again.
Without original "White Box" pamphlet version, we don't get AD&D, which is just the original with expansions.
Without AD&D, we don't get 2nd Edition.
Without 2nd Edition, we don't get 3rd Edition or 3.5.
Without 3.5 we don't get 4E.
Without the rebellion against 4E, we don't get 5E.
So, without AD&D, the real basis of the modern game, we don't have D&D.
Having started back in the days of THE WHITE BOX (and I still have some of the dice from 3 White Box sets) I know that this is all fact.
I liked Advanced D&D E1. I played when advanced just came out and we had players/DMs who knew basic. So it was always a hybrid. Which soon became Advanced rules with some of the basic stuff. More character building if I remember correctly. That was a long time ago. We didn't have sex restrictions or some other limits. Combat I think is over explained and made a little confusing at first. I can't remember how it read before. But, everyone grasped it by the first game day. READ 5E if never played and it's a lot more confusing. Being honest. Action, reactions, bonus action. And still have initiative and AC. To me not as different on concept depending how looking at it and trying to explain it.
I think combat when a lot smoother. We still had to wait our turn but it was more like. Roll and do this and done. Not the let's make characters super heroes compared to the original game.
I think spells were even smoother to use or something back then. Some just seems to much more workable quickly. I honestly can't remember the limits on spells and how it worked back then.
we played a LOT. almost every weekend and we would do the module that day. Or 2 at the most. we had lots of 6 to 8 hour sessions. So it seemed strange that I hear how it took years to build up to level 20. We had 4 DMs who played and 2 or 3 others off and on. I loved writing modules back then. I quit for a long time. I was doing a story that was a parody to the Alice in Wonderland. After I finished that my goal was to do a story that orcus and asmodeas were actually working together to stay in power. I was also starting to think about connection modules/game together. I loved Strahd back then. So in early games they can find a letter from there. Or A map that mentions there. Even a book on a shelf. Lot's of little things that later if they hear the name or place it is connected. Which eventually was going to lead to the demon/devil alliance. Was going to do the 9 hells as a story. and the Abyss as another. Then something together. Which I thought of using Tiamat and Biomet in. Which could of been used to tie whole thing together. Dragons trying to put an end to the whole thing. Already was going to have a town that was dragons in human form. Where half the town was dragons who cared about the humans they knew. Never did get them all finished and sold all my books and stories. The person's wife left and he killed himself. I think she destroyed everything. I still regret not keeping it all. Wanted to see about eventually publishing some. Or run parts of it thru Dragon Magazines we had back then.
I was hoping you'd go more into the pummelling, grappling, and overbearing rules as part of the explanation of combat procedures. 🤣
Played basic a little then moved to AD&D. got pretty smooth after a few sessions, great vid
Thanks so much! It required a lot of research on my part haha
@@NorseFoundry Depending on the dm we did mix Basic and AD&D rules especially monsters. But to be really weird some monsters had multiple ACs depending on what you were aiming for.
Fun fact the first three Ad&d books were all total about 500 pages total. I think the new 2024 PHB is going to be what 320?
Always started new players on basic for a short adventure with some combat and then transferred them to advanced.
I thought THAC0 came out in 2nd edition. The main point of it was to remove the need for the clunky tables...
It was first coined in 1985 as a term pre-2e. I referred to it as what the system would become known as, not what it was initially called 😁
@NorseFoundry THAC0 was in the 1e DMG, as a short-hand in the list of monster stats in the DMG.
Ok, had to watch because of the click bait. AD&D is still, by far, my favourite version. I pretty much only dislike Psionics. THAC0 was 2e, 1e was hit tables. While I like 5e, I dislike more from it than 1e. Yes, please review OD&D. That's the version I cut my teeth on. Great video. Liked and Subscribed.
I said that the system would become known as THAC0 - the term was coined in 1985, I believe. But thank you! It took quite a bit of digging to put together on my part haha.
@@NorseFoundry Yes, you did say that. But sort of like the look-up tables. The tables were eliminated and became the THAC0. 2e took away all but one of the "20" to-hit numbers against the lower ACs, and the suggestions from 1e that the other "20" hits be natural, natural with magic weapons, etc. Simplifying combat by eliminating look-up tables. Again, great video.
Yes, I think we’re agreeing on the same point haha. I mentioned THAC0 so that people who have heard of it but not the 1e to hit tables would understand it was based on the same decreasing AC scale. Sorry for the confusion!
THAC0 *WAS* in AD&D 1e but only in the DMG Appendix E: "Alphabetical Recapitulation of Monsters". It was seen primarily as a tool for the DM as players only had to worry about one character and could just easily refer to a table that they'd write on their character sheet so it was easy, whilst the DM had a load of monsters to worry about. (Many people had "invented" it - or something similar - independently before the DMG was published anyway as it was useful.)
Norse Foundry's bonus is that it's always good to see jacked guys playing D&D. Edit: I vote more for 2E pros and cons but I bet a lot of guys wanna see OD&D pros and cons.
We are planning on doing a 2E video for sure! Be sure to stay tuned!
You could play a halforc but couldn’t play an orc, and you could play a halfling but couldn’t play a ling, either.
Pesky Hobbits!
Have you done one of these on 2e yet?
Yep! It’s in the playlist. I took a slightly different angle on it.
I like your video. However, I want to point out that ADnD 1e had no bonus spells due to high stats. A first level magic-user (i.e. wizard) had one spell per day only, even with intelligence 18. Later, comming with Unearthed Arcana, a magic-user could skip his one first level spell for four zero level cantrips. 😊
Hey! Thanks for the info! I was actually pointing towards Clerics and therefore Druids. Once their WIS meets or exceeds 16 gain bonus spells for exceptional wisdom (pg 11 PHB 1977)
I typically like most of 1e, but I have never and will never play with the rule where women have different stats than men. That’s just weird.
I agree!
i just hate how pointless the thief was. No matter how people try to defend it, the thief was so ass it makes no sense why they even bothered putting them in the game
@CajunCatguy good luck trying to even disarm that trap as a thief. A fighter would likely just tank that trap. Yes taps were more dangerous in classic 1st edition, yet, the fighter would likely still eat it up just fine
@CajunCatguy and fighter with a 10 foot pole or a spear was so effective at setting off traps at a safe distance, that it is literally now a meme
@CajunCatguy our well known barbarian was indeed a thief. And characters like Jack and the beanstalk and other swashbucklers are in the rogue class. But unfortunately, the game rules don’t make roleplaying those characters possible as a human thief class.
Did the fighter use a 10 foot pole??
And sure u can dual class. But by the time ur a competent fighter with thief levels, you’ve basically already experienced a couple years (unless u have friends that play daily with u) as a fighter irl :/ doesn’t really make me feel like I’m playing a thief by the time I dual class
@CajunCatguy lol that’s funny. I mean that’s never really how I played my fighters. I always played a bit smarter. But I grew up in the 90s. Played a lot of 1st and 2nd edition DM’d by my old head cousin. His interpretation of the rules made them basically impossible to survive if u tried using thief skills at low levels. So most of his friends and my brother and I, would start from fighter then switch to thief.
Also influenced by modern fictions , my fighters tended to not just be “big dumb guy swing sword” lol. (Ps, Srry for unnecessary backstory. Just thought maybe it would help see from my perspective I guess. I’m enjoying our discussion)
Don’t agree
And that’s okay too. What don’t you agree with on the video?