Thank YOU for watching and commenting! And yes, Holmes often gets overlooked. I myself never played that edition; shortly after I began playing B/X, I discovered Advanced D&D, and was at a friend's house who had a beat up Holmes box but he said it was "just Basic" and I never looked at it. It wasn't until a few years ago that I began to delve into the edition and learn more about the special place it holds in the history of the game. I talk about it more in my videos on the History of D&D Editions ua-cam.com/video/RgoyqfPoMnw/v-deo.html and on the History of D&D Alignment & Planes ua-cam.com/video/b6QE5_Yydl0/v-deo.html. Thanks again!
I really love these videos, the format is simple and effective, and your voice is very pleasant. This is a really interesting journey through the history of D&D! ❤
I really appreciate you saying that! My wife refers to my voice as "boring," but I will take "pleasant"! I'm so glad you're enjoying the videos. More to come!
Your videos fill me with a tremendous nostalgia, as I remember every single one of the products named, and when they came out. So much of my life was wrapped up in this hobby.
A funny thing is at first I didn't like the Erol Otus illustrations which are heavily featured in Moldvay, then it grew on me over the years and Erol Otus became my favorite D&D artist.
It's funny you say that, because I did have a similar experience. When I saw the Easley paintings for the 1E revised rulebooks, and Caldwell paintings on Dragon magazine, I began to think of the Erol Otus illustrations as being inferior, but as I've grown, I've come to appreciate his style and also how he brings a sense of "weirdness" that I like in my fantasy. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Similar experience here. At first I'd look at Otus's work with derision: "Nobody would ever wear a helmet with great big antlers. And even if they did, they wouldn't pair with a pointy-shouldered vest!" But then I noticed that, at the table, my imagination was picturing the game's events in Erol Otus style!
I hated the idea of Race-as-Class at first, but I have come to warm up to it so much that I actually prefer it. B/X is an awesome system, and I’m pretty invested in Old School Essentials by now.
I love Old School Essentials and you'll be hearing more about that in my new video series! Once I discovered AD&D a little less than a year after I began playing B/X, I dismissed race-as-class as inferior. I never thought I'd go back, but I'm running a game that way for my daughter and her friends, and it's working great. (Caveat: They have no context for anything else as it's the only TTRPG they've ever played, so I don't know if they'd prefer separate race-and-class, but for now, they love it!).
The best thing about B/X is how tight and concise the rulebooks are. I don't think there's more RPG gaming to be found in 64 pages than the basic and expert rulebooks of this edition.
Very much agree with this! And thank you for watching and commenting! I also like how, more than most other editions, it's easy to modify and tweak. And it's such a favorite of many old-school gamers that there is a ton of really creative content out there made for this edition, especially in the past ~10 years.
Thank you! I really appreciate that. I think part of that is due to my extreme lack of technical knowledge and my very scraped together set-up (I'm recording all these on my phone and you'd laugh if you saw the set-up I had to make to get the overhead shots). Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate your support!
Moldvay Basic was my first rpg as well. Erol Otus is my favorite TSR illustrator, by the way. I also had Tom Moldvey's other rpg, Lords of Creation. I never played that, but it looked cool.
That's so awesome you have Lords of Creation! I was never aware of that game until decades later when I acquired a copy of Lawrence Schick's book "Heroic Worlds" that mentioned it. Tom wrote quite a few D&D modules of which I was very fond, including B4: The Lost City, and X2: Castle Amber. Thank you for watching and commenting!
I know what you mean! I was introduced to the game via this edition through my friends at school, and couldn't stop looking at the pictures and reading about all the cool characters. I still have some old notebook papers that were school assignments, but on the back are written adventures that I passed back and forth in class with my DM! Thank you for watching and commenting! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for watching and commenting! And do let me know if there are other topics you'd like to see me delve into more. Thanks!
this was my first TTRPG, in 1981. I still have the book. Oddly, I found the red book only at a hobby store and didn't realize I should buy the box set, as I'd only read a short article about it and really knew nothing about the game.
I remember the books being sold separately (if I recall, they were $6.00 each, whereas the boxed set was $12.00). As you saw, my Expert book was purchased separately, although that was much later. I never had the "real" Expert set as a kid, but my dad kindly photocopied my friend's book for me on his office photocopy machine (which as an adult I now realize was an early form of piracy!). Thanks for watching and commenting!
That's awesome! My grandmother got me a gift subscription to Dragon magazine starting with issue #90 (October 1984) which I kept up all the way through to the last print issue (#359) even after she passed away. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I demand a dedicated video on that original 40+ year old character. Show us the sheet, go over the stats and scores, then tell us what memories you have of playing the character. Love the channel!
Thank you so much! I have planned to do this in a video I'll be recording in the next week or so to celebrate reaching 5000 subscribers. One part of that video will be about old PCs including this one. Thanks for the idea! And thank you for watching and commenting!
Oh, yeah, that would've definitely been rare at that point! The color-in dice were pretty short lived; by the time Gamma World 2nd Edition game out in 1983 (just 2 years after the dice shown in this video), my boxed set came with multi-colored dice all with the numbers printed in black ink.
First game I played, and later recieved, was the large black box with the Jeff Easley dragon on the cover. It had a solo adventure with a bunch of tabbed cards in a sleeve that was also a DM screen. It was physically awkward really. The race-as-class made sense until I played AD&D and 2e. It seemed more sophisticated to have more class and race options. It took me until recently to appreciate it again. The simple class structure meant you could flesh out the bare bones however you want. And if the game was fast and deadly, one didn't need to take an hour to make a new character. It's honestly quite elegant. I run alot of Dungeon Crawl Classics, which is a love letter to Basic D&D.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate the support! My journey was very similar to yours, although it looks like I started a little bit earlier with this Moldvay Basic set vs. the "Black Box" you started with (I talk about that one in my "History of D&D Editions" video: ua-cam.com/video/RgoyqfPoMnw/v-deo.html) but shortly thereafter learned about 1E and the separation of race-and-class which I immediately thought was superior. And it took me until a few years ago to come back around to appreciating race-as-class. I do that for my daughter's game, and there have been no complaints, although to be fair, they have no context as they've never played another RPG. DCC is great! I don't play it as it, but use a lot of its ideas and tables in the game I run for my daughter and her friends.
I also started with the Moldvey basic set. Mine didn’t come in a box. I got the basic rule book and the B2 module wrapped together in shrink wrap; no dice. It was a Christmas gift. I don’t know why it wasn’t in a box.
They did sell the items separately, and there was also a time in the mid-80's that TSR was selling packages of previously printed materials at a discounted price. I acquired many of my modules in that format, so it's possible that's why. In any event, great that you got it! And thank you for watching and commenting!
Thank you for watching and commenting! Yes, I still love that set all these years later. I think of all my RPG products (at least, ones I bought myself or were given "new" as a gift), it's in the most worn shape due to usage!
Yeah, B/X is where I got my start too. :-) We basically STILL play it... because we play an amalgam of B/X with AD&D 1e. We love a lot of the parts of B/X that are elegant simplicity... but we do also like a lot more of the "stuff" and options in 1e. I own the 5e books, but have yet to play that version of the game.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I do very much of the same! Even back in the day, we ran a B/X game mashed with a lot of the stuff from 1E because we didn't really understand they were supposed to be two separate games, so we used the combat, encounters, and exploration rules from B/X but the race, class, spells, weapons, etc., from AD&D and ignored inconsistencies. These days for my daughter's game, I run B/X using Old School Essentials, and also incorporate stuff from Old School Essentials Advanced, as well as some house rules from other editions including 2E, 3.5, and 5E. I own the 4E and 5E books also, but only played them each about twice. I'm happy to play pretty much any edition, but in terms of running a game, right now I'm preferring B/X.
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, when I was looking at OCE, I ended up buying the Advanced Fantasy version... because it is about as close as I have seen anywhere to the game we already play. lol ;-) Really great layout in those books. About the best I have seen, to be honest.
This was my first set too. Played the heck out of Basic and Expert, I REALLY wish I would have kept them though. My friends and I used the heck out of it though and I figured I wouldn't need it after we made the switch to 1e. Seeing those illustrations as you were flipping through brought back all kinds of memories. What the heck WAS that sideways map at the end? I never understood it's purpose. And that version of B2 didn't have a map of the keep, being a little kid I had zero clue what a keep looked like so we didn't hang out there very much. It was just a resupply station every time we ran it. Eventually I drew a map because I repurposed the Caves of Chaos frequently over the years. Very fun!! Great video!!!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! Yes, there is quite a bit left for a DM to create and fill out, especially with the Keep, although my copy that I showed in the video does have a (very rudimentary) map of the Keep on Page 16. For the game I run for my daughter, I found a 3D map of the Keep online and I added some extra buildings and such to where it's much bigger, almost like a small city. I know what you mean about the side-view map in the Basic book. It always confused me as a kid, even though I liked the idea of seeing all the stuff below the Haunted Keep, but it's not really explained at all how to use it!
Basic is the ideal of the D&D game for me. I only discovered it as an adult through OSE but now I kind of treasure going back to actual basic and interrogating it for context. The play example can lead to great deep dives on things like “pass through fire” from Chainmail. OSE is a fantastic piece of work but it’s also a gateway to this original text and its wealth of context and tradition. And I love Halflings, Dwarves, and Elves being their own classes. It’s classes as Fantasy archetypes and I think it really works.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it. It took me a long time to come around to this point of view. I started with Moldvay, but after a few years, thought that it was "for kids" and I focused on the "more serious" 1E. When 3E came along, I decided race-as-class made no sense. I finally came full circle back to my roots and realized how elegant the B/X system is, and I'm so glad to be running it for my daughter and her friends!
This is the D&D I played, this and Expert. It was great. Back then, without internet (of course), if you lived in a rural area, it was hard to find people to play with. After our group drifted apart, I had all the first AD&D hardback books, and spent hours creating characters and campaigns that would never see play. Now, my daughter plays in a gaming club, and has said I should give it a go, now that access is so much easier. But it all seems to have changed so much and there's a lot to get your head around... it's quite daunting and constantly gets pushed back to "one of the things I'll get around to, one day". Stumbling across this channel has been a real trip down memory lane.
That sounds like a lot of fun! You can send me an email at samothdm at gmail and we can set something up! Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Thank you! I love hearing that you discovered the edition through Old School Essentials. It's such a great game and it's actually what I use at my table for the game I run for my daughter (although when I was prepping the campaign, I used my Basic boxed set). That way, I don't have to worry about food or drinks being spilled on my old set, and also the layout of OSE is far superior in terms of finding things quickly at the table. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Boy, this really takes me back! I actually started with the Holmes game - an older friend had that and was my first DM when I was 8 (Christmas 1978!). A different friend then bought the Monster manual, and we read it cover to cover for the next two years until I finally convinced my mom and dad to let me get my own D&D books. This Moldvay box became my first purchase, and I still have fond memories of playing this game with all of my friends throughout the '80s. Despite how compact they were, the writing and art in these books was amazing -- so evocative of the fantasy world that we were delving into. Even today, I can hear a certain song from the '80s on the radio and think, "Oh, yeah, we fought that vampire while this song was playing!" Sadly, I no longer have my original books, but I did pick up the PDFs. (I also have beautiful new copies of Old School Essentials, which I recommend -- it's a modern publishing of the same exact rules, but better organized and with a clean, easy-to-follow design -- but still fantastic, old-school art!) 🙂
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! And thank you for sharing your story! I love hearing how people got into the hobby and what their journey was. Looks like you and I are the same age! I recall after I discovered Moldvay Basic that a friend had Holmes Basic, but by that time, I'd also discovered AD&D, so I didn't spend much time looking at his Holmes book. I wish I had! And I love Old School Essentials! I have both Classic Fantasy and Advanced and it's what I actually use at the table to run the game for my daughter, which saves my old Basic Boxed Set from getting damaged from greasy fingers or spilled soda! Thanks again!
I kept most of my books, although I sold Basic/Expert to Finance Advanced...but I wished I had kept all my notes and scratchings. Excellent video, thank you.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! As a kid, I quickly became much more enchanted by Advanced D&D, so I can understand and relate to getting rid of your B/X stuff to make money to buy more Advanced books. It wasn't until I was adult that I began to see the eloquence of the B/X system.
To this day I consider this and "BECMI" the two best versions of D&D/AD&D. They were where I started back in the early 80s and stick with them to this day.
They're both great and 99.99% compatible! There's a reason I've gone back to running this system for my daughter's campaign. Another reason is that so much creative stuff coming out from the old-school movement is designed, at least generally, to be compatible with B/X, giving me access to a lot of new ideas. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Thank you so much! I was really surprise that it happened so quickly, especially after talking to other folks and having set an expectation that it would take nearly a year. Thank you for your support!
When I first started playing we were using the original white box set and the basic rules. I remember very well playing in the Caves of Chaos module. And making several trips back to The Keep to get more arrows, oil and maybe a new PC or 3😢 When we started using the AD&D rules, only one person had the Players Handbook so we had to share that book for almost a year until our local hobby shop got some in. And only the DM had a Dungeon Masters Guide for at least a year.
This is very similar to my experiences in terms of the AD&D part. I borrowed a friend's PHB for probably a year or more before getting my own, and the only time I saw the DMG was when I checked it out at the local library. But then after I returned it, when I went back to check it out again, someone had checked it out and never returned it. Thanks for all your comments lately! I'm really glad you found my channel!
Just found this channel… what an amazing memory trip; this was the exact set that first owned and played. Thanks for sharing… gonna watch some more now. ❤
Welcome to the channel, and thank you so much for watching, commenting, and subscribing! I'm really glad you're here and I look forward to chatting with you in the comments. Cheers!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your support, and you watching and commenting! I hope you enjoy some of the other videos as well. More to come soon!
This is my first version of the game too, and it is still one of my favorite. My cousin gave me the Basic and Expert sets for my 10th birthday in July 83. I believe that the classic "red box" set was released at GenCon the next month, but I've never found anything definitive. My Moldvey Basic set is cut up and combined with the Expert set in a binder. I still have some of my dice and modules too.
Thanks for watching and commenting! For my game, I use Old School Essentials as it's the most direct translation of the B/X rules, but with much better layout to use at the table. That said, I also use ideas from Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, DCC, Hyperborea, OSE Advanced Fantasy, 2E, 5E, Index Card RPG, and MÖRK BORG, just to name a few. But as far as which retroclone best captures B/X, it's Old School Essentials, hands-down.
I started with the Moldvay edition but didn't own it; it belonged to a friend with whom I was playing the game. The first D&D products I owned were the three core (1E) AD&D rulebooks. My friends and I soon switched to that version. I still have my PHB, DMG and MM from back then and all of the rest of my AD&D rulebooks and supplements.
Yes, I am very lucky that I never threw out any of my old character sheets! If you see my video on Skills, you'll see one of my old 1E Paladin characters on the official gold-colored AD&D sheets!
Yep, that's the book! I started with this. First character was a magic-user based on the stats I rolled. Died after having cast only one spell. Really storied career that magic-user. I remember being really sad about my character dying. XD
I enjoy race as class, think it makes the different races more unique while also offering up distinct playstyles. My favorite rule I think from Moldvay was that if you weren't proficient in a weapon, instead of a attack penalty like older editions, you instead did half damage. So a wizard using a sword is just roll d4s instead of d8s, which is actually a pretty cool rule and I've found in my games it encourages players to try using different weapons. I also see no harm it letting anyone train it new weapons, time is a factor in my games so I always encouraging players to use it as a resource anyway.
I think it's worth to point out that Lawrence Schick was/is also the main lore writer for Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series (Skyrim, Oblivion, etc). Race-as-class came out as a matter of efficiency. The demi-human species were limited to one (or two classes in the case of elves), so rather than confuse new players with what was basically a superfluous non-choice, race-as-class came up. This is by far my favorite classic book. I remember when I started to get into the game, I played hooky from 5th grace on a rainy day and was absorbed for hours.
Oh wow - Rolemaster! One of my favorite DM's mom refused to let him play D&D in the 80's because it was "satanic" but she was cool with Rolemaster, MERP, and Champions! I myself never had the fortune of playing those games. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed it, and it's nice to meet a fellow Moldvay fan who also has his original boxed sets. Thanks for watching and commenting!
For the longest time I arranged stats as STR- INT, DEX - WIS, CON - CHA. In my mind the pairings meant they were analogous. INT was mental attack, WIS defense, and CHA resilience
This was my introduction to TTRPGs, the boxes are long gone, but I still have the books and one of the dice. The twenty sider was carried around in so many pockets it's nearly worn round.
Those early dice were notorious for all getting rounded off, particularly the D20, after years of use! It's such a fun system and I'm glad to be running it again for my daughter and her friends. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I bring the die out occasionally as a lark, back when we were playing 2nd edition AD&D my players dubbed it "Old Rollee" because it would tend to go right off the table if it didn't hit something. Thanks for the fascinating content!
A few people have commented on that, and I do try really hard to keep my books in good shape despite constant use. The Player's Handbook, for whatever reason, has always retained its shiny cover. I'm not sure if it was something to do with that particular printing or what. Thanks for commenting and for your support of the channel!
I have the 1977 version that included the In Search of the Unknown module. I still have the dice that came with it. I used enamel paints that I used to paint miniatures to fill in the numbers.
A few years after I'd been introduced to D&D, we did a D&D sleepover at a friend's house, and in his room, I saw the Holmes Boxed Set (the 1977 one you mention) that I'd never seen before. For whatever reason, at the time as a kid, it didn't really grab me, but I was very intrigued by his beat up copy of Greyhawk: Supplement I, which was my first exposure to Original D&D. He said I could have it, and to this day, I still have it! Thanks for watching and commenting!
I have the dice, book, and module from that basic set, but no box. I had NO idea that the crayons were for the dice. I would have assumed that they were for drawing the dungeon while playing or writing on a transparent character sheet cover. I notice my version of the manual and module are not 3 hole punched.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it. And wow - I have never seen a rulebook that wasn't three-hole punched! When did you get your copies? I've found a few people here in the comments who didn't know what the crayons were for - glad to have helped answer that mystery!
@@daddyrolleda1 I do not know where it came from exactly. Probably my relative that worked at the print shop. Maybe one that did not get punched and put into a box? I am going to be cleaning out some closets for my parents (house I grew up in). Maybe I will find the box.
@@richardtorpy7881 I bet you have all kinds of treasures that folks would drool over! An unpunched copy of this would be a rarity, I would think. I've never seen or even heard of one. Not that you're looking to get rid of it, but if you could provide provenance, I suspect you could make quite a pretty penny on an auction site.
Played the edition with the lady and dragon on the front when it first came out, loved it, tried to get my family to try it but that was a hard no from all. I then played the BECMI edition for a while then I discovered other games and moved on from them, I always played solo due to noone to play it with. Still mainly play solo. AS for controversy, When had D&D NOT been the heart of some controversy?! Besides as long as there have been geeks and nerds we have been harassed not only for our interest but how we spend our time :)
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! I, too, tried to get my sister and parents to play, to no avail. I still have their character sheets I created for them. My dad made a Fighter cleverly named "Rocky," my sister a Magic-user named Estelline, and my mom an Elf named Pokaro. I tried to DM them through an adventure but they were just completely thrown by the idea of there being no board and no official moves or anything like that. So, I mainly played with my friends by passing notes back and forth during class until we got to the weekend and then every once in a while we'd go to someone's house and play for a few hours before watching a movie or Late Night with David Letterman. I know there are a lot of solo RPGs out there, but I've never really explored them.
When it came to my D&D adventures (when I was the Dungeon Master), I made the rule that if a player was not available to make a suggestion, but made it anyways, then the other players could no longer use that idea. If a character could not know something, then the player was informed that his character could not know that (e.g. modern physics or chemistry). Attempts at cheating would almost invariably end in disaster for the player characters.
I really love what you're doing. I thought about doing something like this, but I don't have as much knowledge as you, though I'm sure I could get it through research, but even then I don't think I'd do as good a job as you're doing. Thank you for making all these videos. They're really enjoyable to watch.
I appreciate that so much, and I think there's room for all kinds of content on here. You have your own niche, and I certainly don't have the stamina or skill to have have written a full fantasy novel to share with folks like you have. Cheers!
I first tried this game back in 78-9, and the most confusing thing which at that moment put me off more than anything was the three rule sets (OD&D, Holmes basic, bits of AD&D) and magazine articles (Dragon White Dwarf & zines, (taken as gospel, even if they were not) which were bodged into Dungeons can Drag On. My opion changed as the AD&D releases arrived. WhIle the later (1981 +) editions of basic d&d have always appeared that they were released with the hindsight of AD&D; I believe they should have become AD&D light. However the streamlining that they recieved was well worth the effort, and now again with hindsight, this is becoming the norm; action, pace and imagination compared with slavish dedication with 'somebody else's story'. New to your channel and I hope this version of the game has the same inspiration on your daughter that it had on you.
I am so glad you found my channel, and I thank you so much for watching, commenting, and sharing your RPG story! I love hearing about people's initial exposure to the game and their thoughts at the time. I think, at this point, my daughter's main interest in the game lies in "scheduled time to hang out with her friends." The friends she plays with now are ones she's known since Daycare or Kindergarten, but none of them go to the same schools with each other, so D&D is one of the only times they see each other. She doesn't talk about the game outside of actual game time, like I would have at her age! But, my hope is that she sees I'm doing this *for* her so she and I can spend time doing something together, which has become more difficult the older she gets and develops her own interests. I suspect when she's older, she'll look back with fondness on this time, however long it lasts. Thank you again, and I hope you stick around to find other videos you like!
I think "friendlier" is a great way to put it. It definitely is more approachable for a younger audience, I think. The AD&D font and layout, to me, looks more like a text book. As a kid, though, I thought the AD&D books were really cool because I felt like an adult just reading them, with all the fancy words and such! There's a website out there that codifies and provides examples of all the fonts used across every edition of D&D if you can find it. It's really interesting.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that! And yes, I'm a bit of a packrat (as you saw, not only do I have my original dice, but also my very first character sheet!). But I'm very organized - all my old D&D notes, maps, drawings, characters, etc., are all in different file folders, color-coded, with labels/tabs, in my filing cabinet.
Again, I can't promise this is good advice, just what I want; but I am designing a game, and would love to see a rules overview of the very first edition, including an overview/appraisal of the dice math, and the rules stripped down to SRD length, and laid out. And then to compare how future rules changed things. And then compared to other systems. I'd love to see the modular systems that comprise these games compartmentalized and compared. Depending on the system, and the dice, many game systems can be swapped with other complementary systems By really looking, comparing and appraising, it would allow us to see which rule modules work best for which kinds of play, and maybe how to condense, or streamlime things, by combining some, or creating interesting new ones. As always, a great vid, thanks!
It's rather funny how d10's having the other actually marked with tens was a significant technological breakthrough. I actually remember getting a set with two different colored d10's which was already am improvement 😅 Maybe part of the reason I never quite liked d% based systems or thieves' skills in BECMI. 😆
So many other games I got back in the 80's were all percentile based games, like Star Frontiers, Top Secret, and Marvel Super Heroes, and all of them came with two different colored D10s numbered 0-9! I have way more of those than I do ones numbers with 10's!
5:24 accidentally kept your og set in better condition so it's more valuable as a collectors item. Lol. What a cool thing to be able to pass down to your kids
I tend to take really good care of my stuff, including books, comics, and games. I even kept all my boxes that my Lego sets came in (unfolded and pressed flat) and the backs of every Star Wars figure I ever bought (some are missing the proof-of-purchase that I mailed in to get my free figures, like Boba Fett, sadly without the jet pack that actually fired a missile). And yes, one day, my entire D&D/TTRPG collection will go to my daughter. I do hope she'll want to keep it!!!
Ha - you would honestly laugh if you could see my set up. It's quite ridiculous as I'm just using my phone, a few boxes stacked up, and yard-sticks placed across to hold my phone. It's not very stable but with the space I have, it's the only solution I could think of. I know it's not professional but it seems to be getting the job done.
The separation of race and class started in Original D&D after the Greyhawk supplement came out, and the Thief class was introduced (as the rules noted that dwarves, elves, halflings, and half-elves could all be Thieves with no level limits, in addition to acting as Fighters for Dwarves and Halflings or Fighter/Magic-Users for Elves and Half-Elves). Holmes Basic kept that distinction by allowing demi-humans to be Thieves as well. AD&D also separated race and class but opened up the options a bit more (half-elves could be rangers, all races could also be assassins, etc.). It was the B/X (Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert) that first made a race-as-class version of the game. That was the one I started with but we quickly began incorporating rules from AD&D into our game. Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
The version (1977) that I started with only allowed 3d6 to be rolled for abilities; they were rolled in order (no choosing where the ability scores went), you could be any race, but races were limited in which classes they could be. Halflings could be thieves, but dwarves were limited to fighter only, iirc. Gnomes could be MU's (I think), but had to be illusionists (a new class defined in Dragon Magazine). Elves could be magic users, fighters, thieves, OR fighter-magic users. Half-elves could be any class (iirc). HP were d8 for fighters, d6 for clerics, d4 for MU's and thieves (and were rolled!). I could really suck for the poor guys who rolled 1's, let me tell you! We had not come up with the concept of simply reusing a character that had already been rolled--don't ask me why. I mean, we were all honor-roll students. One of us was a valedictorian. We are talking eastern Massachusetts, with a high school of 1000 students and graduating classes of >200. So no small feat. We never actually considered it. We did, however, come up with the idea of having NPC's who were pre-rolled characters. Gene Eric, the Cleric was a favorite (nobody wanted to be the cleric). It was not very long, however, before the Player's Handbook came out and rescued our players from their drudgery!
What a great story! Thank you for sharing! It sounds like you were probably playing either Original D&D or perhaps Holmes Basic, but incorporating articles from Dragon magazine (Ranger, Illusionist, and Bard all appeared in the Strategic Review and/or Dragon before being made official in the 1978 Advanced D&D Player's Handbook - I have a video about those classes). Original D&D and Holmes Basic allowed any race to be a Thief, but otherwise, Dwarves and Halflings had to be Fighters, and Elves and Half-Elves were Fighter/Magic-Users. Gnomes did not debut as an official player character class until the 1978 PHB. My group in Junior High School consisted of the art kids and the "almost drop-outs" but then my family moved states (and schools, obviously) and it took me awhile to find a group, but in High School that group consisted of a wide cross section: our school's Valedictorian and Salutatorian, me (I was in the Top 10 of our school at graduation), a guy whose brother had been expelled for fighting, stealing, and drug-use, and a computer whiz who had no social skills and who oddly was doing very poorly in school despite being exceptionally smart. We all just kind of "found" each other. Thanks again!
Most of my friends cut apart their Basic and Expert books and put them in a binder. I thought about it but I actually didn't own the Expert book until more than a decade later, so the temptation to do so was much less.
I loved that picture as a kid, and honestly spent way too much time trying to figure out which of the characters was Chaotic and which was Neutral (the cleric seemed to be the Lawful one). Most folks would say the thief-looking character who is trying to stab the goblin (?) is Chaotic and the fighter who is looking away is Neutral, but I also thought it was possible the Thief was Neutral and just doing what made the most sense, dispassionately dispatching a goblin whom they couldn't afford to leave there but also couldn't bring along with them for fear of him revealing their position and/or trying to escape, etc. And then the Fighter's kind of reveling in the Chaos, smugly enjoying the moment. Probably not a great interpretation, but 13yo me was confused!
@@daddyrolleda1 whoa! I never thought about it that way To me it was clearly: "I wanna kill 'im." (Chaos) - "No, you mustn't!" (Law) - "Whatever, {yawn} hurry up." (Neutrality)
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that, and I just returned the favor. Looking forward to going through some of your AD&D videos like the one on Descent Into the Depths of the Earth. Cheers!
Ha! It's been ~43 years... I think at this point I'll just leave them. I'm glad I found the crayon, though. I thought I'd lost it years ago. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Really my only criticisms of race-as-class are that it always makes me want more races and their classes in game, that the halfling could use a little more emphasis on stealth rather than hit and run ranged combat (B/X Halflings are the precursor to 4e Rangers LOL), and that the Elf is too close to a human wizard mechanically and his spell list should be different.
Totally get where you're coming from, and I do always struggle with wanting more classes in a class-and-level system, but also knowing that too many classes begins to bog down the game and also create more and more niche classes that are only good in certain situations. For B/X, I've created three new classes (Alchemist, Demolitionist, and Inventor) that I think are different enough to stand apart (one could argue that an Alchemist could simply just be a magic-user using potions/items versus spells, but I wanted them to be different). And, I'm finishing up a new spell list that can be used for an "alternate" magic-user (like a sorcerer, maybe) but also makes a good spell-list for elves to help differentiate them from human magic-users. Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
@@drzander3378 I basically picked all the sizes and options they have available. Sometimes certain colors have fewer options but they should go from XS all the way to 5XL and some also have "long" versions as well. Let me know what you're looking for and I'll see what I can do. You can send me an email at samothdm AT gmail DOT com if you want.
Oh no! Hopefully that didn't prevent you from continuing to play! If you ever wanted to replace it, I have actually seen folks selling just the box on 3rd party sites and places like Ebay. Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really enjoy hearing about how people got into the hobby and their RPG journey. Cheers!
I tend to forget about the "engagement mechanics" of YT and have a plebian frame of reference in this regard. I was gifted with the "Holmes Blue Book" and also made use of library materials. The only problem was that my friends were playing Moldvey Basic and I was trying to keep up and learn with Holmes and AD&D materials. Oddly, it wasn't until 2nd ed. dropped that my apostasy saw redemption, as it was clear that BX could reconciled in AD&D terms (and with more economical page counts than the RC). Of course, 2e was not gladly received by the fan base initially and someone who liked *Basic* (use the "gas-face" when you say it) was more than suspect... Long boring sob story to say: "hey, thanks for the video!"
Jermaine: Hey Brett, have you colored your dice with crayons? Brett: I don’t want to rub crayons on my dice. Jermaine: Yeah but you can’t read the numbers; you color yellow dice with a red crayon, blue dice with a white crayon, and then wipe the wax off with a T-Shirt. Brett: No.
So, I have no idea what kind of availability B/X had in Japan, or if the creators actually played it or not, but there's an old anime that always struck me as straight B/X. Record of Lodoss War, and it had the Fighter, the Cleric, the Magic User, the Thief, the Dwarf and the Elf (don't recall off the top of my head if there was a Halfling or not.)
I like race as class a lot. My first RPG was the West End Games Star Wars, and I think that really colored my perceptions. It wasn't hard for me to see "the dwarf" as a sort of iconic figure similar to Chewie being "the wookie." Later, Gazeteers expanded non-human options and I kind of like those better than AD&D. I don't know. I kind of would like a compendium of all the Gazeteer rules expansions together, but I guess that's what the OSR is for,
shame shame!!!! you did not use the crayons!!!!🤣 this was my first rule book too still love basic D&D and also BECMI too. THACO always made sense to me too. 🤣
Ha! Yeah, I really thought "what if I screw this up? What am I going to tell my mom? How am I going to get more dice?" Silly, I know, but I was a bit of an anxious kid! Nice to meet another Moldvay Basic fan!
BX is my favorite version of the game because it was the game I started with in about 1982. Compared to AD&D, it doesn't have all those details that bog down the AD&D game. I don't really care that AD&D has more than one kind of pole arm. I don't think the superstrength feature for fighters in AD&D is a better game mechanic than Modvay/1981 rules. The bonuses/penalties in this version of the game are streamlined. Its funny to see how many players back in the day would turn up their nose at "Basic" and play AD&D but now the Basic-retro-clones seem to do better than the AD&D-retro-clones.
We started at almost the exact same time! And yes, the B/X system has become the favorite of the OSR community, and I've also returned to it after thinking, back in the 80's, that it was "for kids." Thanks for sharing your history of playing the game. I always enjoy reading about other people's experiences!
Great video! All of your stuff is very informative. I was wondering if you could comment on the differences in initiative and combat between Basic D&D and AD&D 1e? The reason is that I feel that I have always kept just playing Basic D&D over the years, while adopting the AD&D 1e source material, races and classes. I don't use weapon AC adjustments or speed factors. Are my friends any I the only ones who do this? We use the AD&D 1e books exclusively, but kind of stick with Basic mechanics if that makes sense.
Ha! To answer the second part of your question... almost everybody I have met in the "old school" scene played EXACTLY the same way you and your friends did (including me)! I started with B/X and when we discovered AD&D, we just assumed it was an extension (not a separate game) so we dropped in the new classes and races and spells and weapons, increased the Hit Dice, and ignored everything else. We *never* used Weapon Speed Factors or Weapon vs AC or anything like that. This is a perfect example of how people will refer to pre-3E D&D as being "rules light," but to me, AD&D is *more* complex than 3E! The first part of our question is a bit more complicated, but in general: * AD&D combat rounds add the complexity of "segments" (1 second, or 1/10 of a round) with the first six segments being devoted to Initiative stuff. B/X does not have this level of complexity. Actually, I was going to type this all out, but I would refer to: 1) This document which details and annotates the D&D order of combat: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/knights-n-knaves.com/dmprata/ADDICT.pdf It's multiple pages with exceptions and clarifications and details. 2) The B/X Order of Combat can be read from the Old School Essential SRD (Old School Essentials is a retro-clone of B/X but the rules are 99.9999% faithful but just cleaning up the layout and also reconciling any discrepancies between Basic and Expert, of which there are just a small handful): oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Combat#Combat_Sequence_Per_Round The B/X order is much cleaner and simplistic, but it would rely on a DM to make a ruling for situations it doesn't cover, whereas AD&D seeks to create fringe, specific rules for every minute situation that could possibly come up in combat (but, to me, still fails at trying to do so and adds in unnecessary complexity).
I played the Moldvay Basic and Expert sets and then graduated to AD&D and 2e. AD&D really did seem advanced, but it had a ton of stuff I'd never play with, like rolling monthly for disease and aerial combat maneuvers clearly taken from wargames. I never liked race as class, but then the old games have a lot of problems that could be cleaned up easily to make them nice, streamlined d20 roll-high games. I don't get why so many people make retro-clones with attack matrixes and other clumsy mechanics. We know better now! Fix that stuff!
Was race as class really new? In OD&D, dwarves and halflings could only be fighters. Elves had their weird multiclass thing going. Even if they were theoretically different, they were really tied together and effectively race as class.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I'm actually working on an entire video on this subject (it's been requested a lot). While mechanically OD&D with just the three first books (no supplements) work out close to "race-as-class," it wasn't really *presented* that way in the books. The rules say that if you want to play a Dwarf (for example), you "may opt only for the fighting class." Once you add Supplement I: Greyhawk and the Thief class, the rules allow any non-human race to operate as a Thief as well. Holmes Basic continues this by saying Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings can be Thieves (but it does say to refer to AD&D for rules on demi-human bonuses or penalties for Thief abilities). It wasn't until Moldvay that the language became specific. You're no long playing a Dwarf *Fighter.* You're playing a Dwarf. Again, I do take your point: mechanically, there's pretty much no difference. But it's more about presentation of the rules, plus by the time Moldvay comes out in 1981, the Thief class had existed for 6 years but they opted not to allow non-humans to operate in the class.
I am thinking of starting again after decades for my 10 year old son and nephew. Do you have video or will you do new comparing basic/expert with ADnD for this context? As bonus add Old School Essentials.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! And I'm really excited to hear that you're planning a game with your 10 year-old son and nephew! My daughter was just barely past 10 years old when I started my campaign for her and her friends (she's 14 now). Someone else suggested this idea of differences in rules between editions, so it's definitely something I can tackle in a video. It's a great topic idea. So you don't have to wait too long, here's a *very short* rundown, as I see it: - Basic (B/X) is more streamlined and much more open to DM rulings. It doesn't attempt to create a rule for everything. - Basic has "race as class" so you play an Elf or a Dwarf, not an Elf Thief or Dwarf Wizard, for example. It's based on the initial concepts from OD&D and the idea was that these "race-as-classes" represented the "quintessential" version of that race. - Basic has no multi-classing or dual-classing - AD&D is *much* more complex. Weapon speed factors, Weapon vs AC, Combat Rounds broken down into "Segments" with different actions on different segments, etc. It adds more races and more classes but has (what appear to be) arbitrary rules on which race can operate as which class, limitations on multi-classing, demi-human level limits, and more. Humans can "dual class" (start as one class, then switch to another class, but they start over from scratch, losing their attack bonuses, saves, etc., - everything except their HP, *until* the second class surpasses the first class in level, at which point you can combine the abilities from both classes. It's *very* clunky). - AD&D *attempts* to have a rule for everything, but that's really impossible, so it ends up creating odd situations where you'd assume a rule should exist, but can't find it, unlike in Basic where you know it's your job as the DM to make a ruling and then be consistent about applying the rule going forward. - Many rules that players need in AD&D are actually in the Dungeon Masters Guide, not the Players Handbook. It's counter-intuitive. - Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy takes the 1981 B/X rules (Basic and Expert) and re-states them with all new layout and organization, but without changing the rules. The only *changes* come about due to inconsistencies between the original Basic and Expert rules. In those cases, Old School Essentials has to pick which one was "correct" - they usually default to whatever was done in BECMI or the Rules Cyclopedia. These changes are very minimal, however. The layout is done to make is much easier to find certain rules - key topics are presented on two-page spreads (e.g., each character class is presented as a 2-page spread, to prevent page-flipping, etc.). * Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy seeks to take the fun new ideas from Advanced D&D, such as the new races, classes, weapons, spells, monsters, and treasures, and craft them using B/X mechanics. This means simplifying many things while retaining the "flavor" of AD&D. There are also rules in here for separating race-and-class and for multi-classing, so if that's something you'd like, but you want to retain the elegance of the B/X rules engine, then OSE Advanced Fantasy is for you. It's honestly very close to how I played the game back in the early to mid-80's before I understood that B/X and Advanced were two separate games. I hope that helps you out, but please feel free to ask other questions! And also you may want to check out my Campaign Prep videos - they're all about the game I run for my daughter and her friends: ua-cam.com/play/PLX6jue56rzl2-VzZH19Ke2NU4r0IaJ7be.html
@@daddyrolleda1 Amazing answer! Thank you!! Are the B/X modules compatible with OSEs? Also, I agree your voice is well suited for conveying this subject matter and your videos are great!
@@pscaglione3 I'm glad it helped! And yes, anything created for B/X is 100% compatible with OSE. And, you could also use pretty much any BECMI module with OSE as well. I tend to play a little "fast-and-loose" so in my daughter's game, they went through B2: Keep on the Borderlands (created for Basic) but they just finished that so now they've traveled to a little fishing town called Saltmarsh and I'm using the old *Advanced* D&D Module U1: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Even though it was made for Advanced, it's pretty easy to convert on the fly and ignore the stuff that isn't part of Basic. I really appreciate your support. Thank you!
Yes, definitely. For whatever reason, it seems to be a "hot button" with folks who don't like that a class that's already got a leg-up due to bonuses from high ability scores *also* gets another bonus in XP. But, I don't tend to worry about that kind of that too much.
@@daddyrolleda1 instead of saying good at what he does I should have said they have an innate ability and they advance a little faster. Some guys are just extra talented compared to the norm in any given profession. I never realized people had issues with it.
Also, I don't find race as a class that big a deal. Holmes started the concept to make an introductory version of OD&D. So if people really want race seperate from class, all they have to do is the same thing Holmes did and make a new list is more XP per level.
Race-as-class is something that seems to bug a lot of people, and I used to think it wasn't great when I was a kid, but I've come back around and am using that mechanic in the B/X game I run for my daughter and her friends. Thanks for watching and commenting!
As you flipped though, was there something about each alignment having its own language/code? How did that work, and did it stick around in any later editions?
That is a great question, and could even make a somewhat short video topic! But, to answer your question: Alignment languages debuted in Original D&D (the three little brown books or "White Box"), and were kept through the so-called "Basic" editions of the game (Holmes / Moldvay / Mentzer / Rules Cyclopedia, etc.) and were also a part of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition. They disappear by the time 2nd Edition Advanced D&D is published. The idea was that characters could speak this language and thus identify and converse in secret with others of their alignment. Additionally, while not being able to speak Lawful, for example, a Chaotic character/creature could identify that the other person was speaking Lawful and thereby identify them as an enemy. In Original D&D (and its "Basic" descendants), there were three alignment languages: Lawful, Neutrality, and Chaotic. In AD&D, this got expanded to there being a total of nine alignment languages to match the nine-point alignment system. While Gary originally says that creatures/characters can converse in these languages (as though they were "full" operating languages), in the Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide from 1979, he backtracks on this a bit and says: "...alignment languages are the special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos. Alignment languages are NEVER flaunted in public. They are not used as salutations or interrogatives if the speaker is uncertain of the alignment of those addressed. Furthermore, alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues." In this section, he talks about secret languages, such as Thieves' Cant and secret organizations using "signs, signals, and recognition phrases" to communicate (much like the Freemasons, for example - that's my addition, not Gary's). Gary then goes on to equate alignment languages as being similar to how priests of the medieval Catholic Church communicated via Latin as a common language to cut across cultural boundaries. He also makes it clear that you cannot learn an alignment language from an alignment you don't belong to, and if you switch alignments, you lose the ability to communicate in your former alignment language. He doesn't explain why or how you'd forget, but "mechanically" your character can no longer speak that language. All this, to me, makes it clear that had hadn't really thought through the exact usage and background for alignment languages, and was later trying to retcon the idea after so many people asked questions about it. Hope that helps explain it a bit!
I just found your channel this past week and have been devouring your videos; I can't get enough of them. As for the racial character classes, I personally don't like them at all. Why would ALL dwarves be "fighters," or ALL elves be "fighter/mages?" Limiting an entire race to a single "class" seems very silly to me.
Thank you so much! I"m so glad you found my channel and have been enjoying my content. And I really appreciate you leaving a comment! For years (decades!) I felt the same way about race-as-class. As soon as I discovered 1E, I decided B/X D&D was "for kids" and long held to the idea that not having Dwarf Clerics or Halfling Thieves made no sense. I've come around a bit to the mechanical elegance of the design now for the game I'm running for my daughter, and it certainly made it easier to help the players get started playing, as they had no context of D&D or the idea of splitting race-from-class. However, all that said, I think as they continue to play and introduce new characters, I may end up using Old School Essentials "Advanced Fantasy," which has an option for splitting race from class. We'll see! Thank you again!
This is the best edition of D&D and Tom Moldvay is my favourite game designer. After watching this I edited to add my feelings on race as class which is that I prefer it. I also like that there are less classes, it keeps the game focused and prevents people from stepping on each other's toes.
I agree with all of this! Tom Moldvay was a great designer, and I really gravitate toward the pulp-style adventures he wrote for D&D in addition to this version of the rules. I've also really been liking the 7-class system from Moldvay. It's working really well in the game I run for my daughter and her friends. Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Pulp D&D is the best D&D cough cough Conan cough cough. Out of curiosity what is your favorite Moldvay Module? Mine is B4: The Lost City it takes a particular kind of genius to fit an epic campaign into 28 pages, Keep on the Borderlands has the same page count yet isn't as packed full of content. X2: Castle Amber is close by a razor thin margin and I would be remiss if I didn't mention B3: Palace of the Silver Princess though it can't be completely credited to him, though I think he learned a lot from what Jean Wells made that led to Castle Amber's brilliance. As for you running a game for your daughter that is very sweet and a great way to bond with your child. You're welcome for the comments when I find a UA-camr that I like and I feel deserves more recognition I try to appease the algorithm gods. They require tributes of likes and comments.
This is such a great comment! You hit my favorite Tom Moldvay module - B4: The Lost City. I recall when I got that adventure, on vacation once again in Denver (my dad went there a lot when we were kids, for business, and we'd often tag along to make it a "vacation"). I was at the Waldenbooks at the local mall and my dad's cousin's wife saw me looking at the module, and she bought it for me. It's long been one of my favorites. Not sure if you ever watch the UA-cam channel DungeonCraft with Professor Dungeon Master, but he's going to be doing a series soon about his B4 campaign and I'm really looking forward to it! Thanks again for your support. I truly appreciate it!
@@daddyrolleda1 Awesome yeah B4 is my favorite module of all time, I'm glad you are a man of culture and taste. As for Professor Dungeon Master I used to watch him and thought his content was alright but then he did a video where he tried to argue that 5E combat is just as lethal as BX combat. When someone says something that is so delusional and false they lose credibility to me and I find it hard to be interested in their other content and opinions. I have a disdain for 5E and the mentally/community, this is mostly due to my experience with playing with 5E players and maybe that's just my experience. I don't run 5E anymore because of how bad it got and I don't want to go back so I get annoyed whenever someone tries to justify 5Es philosophy but just my personal opinion.
I'm not sure about cheaper but I think back then no companies had dice with the numbers already filled in (I could be completely wrong on this, though). In any event, TSR's dice didn't have that capability at the time, it seems. Filling them in my hand would've been prohibitively expensive. Eventually, of course, they switched to dice that were created with the numbers already pre-painted.
I understand the usage but I am always sad they used the term basic and then other game the time was advanced when they’re both very good (and honestly not *that* different) systems. I started in 3.0(late 2e if you count video games) so I’m sad I missed this when it was the current box set but I’ve looked at it and built some characters to kind of run my own solo party. I would love to find someone to play some of the older editions with
I didn’t mention my reason for discounting that it is called basic makes it seem like it was not as sophisticated when it was cashed that more for the levels it covered
@@Mellence Oh, I totally get it. I first learned with this set, but only a few months after, I was exposed to the "Advanced" set, and the marketing of that name totally captivated my friends and me, who thought we were special for playing that edition. Of course, what we actually did was incorporate "Advanced" stuff like new classes, races, spells, and weapons into the "Basic" game we were playing, because we didn't actually read the rules to understand they were technically different games. And while they are fundamentally similar, there are a series of mechanical things that are different enough that they're technically not *exactly* compatible. These days, I don't worry about that, and am back to mix-and-matching both versions in the game I run for my daughter and her friends. Nobody knows any different.
I don't play video games, but while I started playing with this 1981 boxed set, in terms of actual number of hours of playing, I've played the most of 3E/3.5. Finding a group can be super hard. I was lucky to have one that consisted of my kid and the people she met in preschool (but who are all high schoolers now, but we kept in touch with them and their parents over the years). I hope this doesn't sound pedantic in case you've tried these options, but if you considered a D&D MeetUp, or visiting a local game store to see if they have a "new player's night" or posting an ad on a message board or whatever social media thing the kids are using these days? Also... thank you so much for watching and commenting! You are always welcome here to chat about the characters you've made and any other things you'd like to chat about.
@@daddyrolleda1 a lot of people in my area play 5th edition which I don’t mind but it’s not my preferred edition. Also sorry for so many typos, I’m glad you were still able to understand me! I’ve contemplated doing some effort to make it work in Tabletop Simulator or Fantasy Grounds to my liking but that still needs a group to do it, though remote groups are easier to find like minded individuals than just whatever is in my area
@@Mellence I understood you just fine! No worries! You'll find a group soon - I'm sure of it! Hang in there, and happy gaming! I do get it that it's more difficult to find groups more interested in playing earlier editions. But they are out there.
Holmes never gets love (outside Zenopus), thanks for bringing him up.
Thank YOU for watching and commenting! And yes, Holmes often gets overlooked. I myself never played that edition; shortly after I began playing B/X, I discovered Advanced D&D, and was at a friend's house who had a beat up Holmes box but he said it was "just Basic" and I never looked at it. It wasn't until a few years ago that I began to delve into the edition and learn more about the special place it holds in the history of the game. I talk about it more in my videos on the History of D&D Editions ua-cam.com/video/RgoyqfPoMnw/v-deo.html and on the History of D&D Alignment & Planes ua-cam.com/video/b6QE5_Yydl0/v-deo.html.
Thanks again!
Cheers for 1000 more 🎉
Thank you! I appreciate your support!
Good memories!
Glad to have provided some good memories for you! Thanks for watching and commenting!
I am jealous you still have that box.
Me too!
I have that one and Holmes Edition
I really love these videos, the format is simple and effective, and your voice is very pleasant. This is a really interesting journey through the history of D&D! ❤
I really appreciate you saying that! My wife refers to my voice as "boring," but I will take "pleasant"! I'm so glad you're enjoying the videos. More to come!
Nice profile picture dude
Your videos fill me with a tremendous nostalgia, as I remember every single one of the products named, and when they came out. So much of my life was wrapped up in this hobby.
Thank you so much for letting me know. I really appreciate that! And, thank you for watching and commenting.
A funny thing is at first I didn't like the Erol Otus illustrations which are heavily featured in Moldvay, then it grew on me over the years and Erol Otus became my favorite D&D artist.
It's funny you say that, because I did have a similar experience. When I saw the Easley paintings for the 1E revised rulebooks, and Caldwell paintings on Dragon magazine, I began to think of the Erol Otus illustrations as being inferior, but as I've grown, I've come to appreciate his style and also how he brings a sense of "weirdness" that I like in my fantasy.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
same here
Similar experience here. At first I'd look at Otus's work with derision:
"Nobody would ever wear a helmet with great big antlers. And even if they did, they wouldn't pair with a pointy-shouldered vest!"
But then I noticed that, at the table, my imagination was picturing the game's events in Erol Otus style!
I hated the idea of Race-as-Class at first, but I have come to warm up to it so much that I actually prefer it. B/X is an awesome system, and I’m pretty invested in Old School Essentials by now.
I love Old School Essentials and you'll be hearing more about that in my new video series!
Once I discovered AD&D a little less than a year after I began playing B/X, I dismissed race-as-class as inferior. I never thought I'd go back, but I'm running a game that way for my daughter and her friends, and it's working great. (Caveat: They have no context for anything else as it's the only TTRPG they've ever played, so I don't know if they'd prefer separate race-and-class, but for now, they love it!).
The best thing about B/X is how tight and concise the rulebooks are. I don't think there's more RPG gaming to be found in 64 pages than the basic and expert rulebooks of this edition.
Very much agree with this! And thank you for watching and commenting!
I also like how, more than most other editions, it's easy to modify and tweak. And it's such a favorite of many old-school gamers that there is a ton of really creative content out there made for this edition, especially in the past ~10 years.
I love these videos and your presentation style. No long, loud intros just straight to business!
Thank you! I really appreciate that. I think part of that is due to my extreme lack of technical knowledge and my very scraped together set-up (I'm recording all these on my phone and you'd laugh if you saw the set-up I had to make to get the overhead shots).
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate your support!
And no background music thank God.
@@goodbuddy7607 I actually have no idea how to even try to add something like that, but I'm glad you don't hold it against me!
Can't tell you how many videos I've shut off just because of the annoying and/or too-loud music.
I was always baffled by the inclusion of the crayons in the box. Thank you for answering that age old mystery for me.
Happy to help! And thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Moldvay Basic was my first rpg as well. Erol Otus is my favorite TSR illustrator, by the way. I also had Tom Moldvey's other rpg, Lords of Creation. I never played that, but it looked cool.
That's so awesome you have Lords of Creation! I was never aware of that game until decades later when I acquired a copy of Lawrence Schick's book "Heroic Worlds" that mentioned it.
Tom wrote quite a few D&D modules of which I was very fond, including B4: The Lost City, and X2: Castle Amber.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
This is the edition I learned to play with. My older brother got it for Christmas. I was side swiped by it and my life was never the same.
I know what you mean! I was introduced to the game via this edition through my friends at school, and couldn't stop looking at the pictures and reading about all the cool characters. I still have some old notebook papers that were school assignments, but on the back are written adventures that I passed back and forth in class with my DM!
Thank you for watching and commenting! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
very interesting
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for watching and commenting! And do let me know if there are other topics you'd like to see me delve into more. Thanks!
this was my first TTRPG, in 1981. I still have the book. Oddly, I found the red book only at a hobby store and didn't realize I should buy the box set, as I'd only read a short article about it and really knew nothing about the game.
I remember the books being sold separately (if I recall, they were $6.00 each, whereas the boxed set was $12.00). As you saw, my Expert book was purchased separately, although that was much later. I never had the "real" Expert set as a kid, but my dad kindly photocopied my friend's book for me on his office photocopy machine (which as an adult I now realize was an early form of piracy!). Thanks for watching and commenting!
Just taught some new young players 5th edition using "The Haunted Keep" as an introductory adventure. No school like the old school! :D
Fantastic! Great to hear that! And thank you for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 You're welcome! Great videos. Like you, I started with Moldvay Basic in 1981!
@@dmcdraws Moldvay Basic Club for the win! We should make t-shirts and membership cards!
My grandmother gave me Basic and Expert in 83!!!
That's awesome! My grandmother got me a gift subscription to Dragon magazine starting with issue #90 (October 1984) which I kept up all the way through to the last print issue (#359) even after she passed away.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I demand a dedicated video on that original 40+ year old character. Show us the sheet, go over the stats and scores, then tell us what memories you have of playing the character.
Love the channel!
Thank you so much! I have planned to do this in a video I'll be recording in the next week or so to celebrate reaching 5000 subscribers. One part of that video will be about old PCs including this one. Thanks for the idea! And thank you for watching and commenting!
I don't have any color-in dice, but I *do* have a 10-sided d20! It was an anachronism when I bought it in the mid-90s.
Oh, yeah, that would've definitely been rare at that point! The color-in dice were pretty short lived; by the time Gamma World 2nd Edition game out in 1983 (just 2 years after the dice shown in this video), my boxed set came with multi-colored dice all with the numbers printed in black ink.
First game I played, and later recieved, was the large black box with the Jeff Easley dragon on the cover. It had a solo adventure with a bunch of tabbed cards in a sleeve that was also a DM screen. It was physically awkward really.
The race-as-class made sense until I played AD&D and 2e. It seemed more sophisticated to have more class and race options. It took me until recently to appreciate it again. The simple class structure meant you could flesh out the bare bones however you want. And if the game was fast and deadly, one didn't need to take an hour to make a new character. It's honestly quite elegant. I run alot of Dungeon Crawl Classics, which is a love letter to Basic D&D.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate the support!
My journey was very similar to yours, although it looks like I started a little bit earlier with this Moldvay Basic set vs. the "Black Box" you started with (I talk about that one in my "History of D&D Editions" video: ua-cam.com/video/RgoyqfPoMnw/v-deo.html) but shortly thereafter learned about 1E and the separation of race-and-class which I immediately thought was superior. And it took me until a few years ago to come back around to appreciating race-as-class. I do that for my daughter's game, and there have been no complaints, although to be fair, they have no context as they've never played another RPG.
DCC is great! I don't play it as it, but use a lot of its ideas and tables in the game I run for my daughter and her friends.
More on the expert book would be neat!
Okay, I can definitely do that! Anything specific, or just an overview like this one?
And thank you for watching and commenting!
I also started with the Moldvey basic set. Mine didn’t come in a box. I got the basic rule book and the B2 module wrapped together in shrink wrap; no dice. It was a Christmas gift. I don’t know why it wasn’t in a box.
They did sell the items separately, and there was also a time in the mid-80's that TSR was selling packages of previously printed materials at a discounted price. I acquired many of my modules in that format, so it's possible that's why. In any event, great that you got it! And thank you for watching and commenting!
My first, too. I got it from a friend in 1981. The magic in that box was real.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
Yes, I still love that set all these years later. I think of all my RPG products (at least, ones I bought myself or were given "new" as a gift), it's in the most worn shape due to usage!
That was my first box as well. Nice!
Thank you so much! I always appreciate when you watch and comment. Cheers!
Yeah, B/X is where I got my start too. :-) We basically STILL play it... because we play an amalgam of B/X with AD&D 1e. We love a lot of the parts of B/X that are elegant simplicity... but we do also like a lot more of the "stuff" and options in 1e. I own the 5e books, but have yet to play that version of the game.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I do very much of the same! Even back in the day, we ran a B/X game mashed with a lot of the stuff from 1E because we didn't really understand they were supposed to be two separate games, so we used the combat, encounters, and exploration rules from B/X but the race, class, spells, weapons, etc., from AD&D and ignored inconsistencies. These days for my daughter's game, I run B/X using Old School Essentials, and also incorporate stuff from Old School Essentials Advanced, as well as some house rules from other editions including 2E, 3.5, and 5E.
I own the 4E and 5E books also, but only played them each about twice. I'm happy to play pretty much any edition, but in terms of running a game, right now I'm preferring B/X.
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, when I was looking at OCE, I ended up buying the Advanced Fantasy version... because it is about as close as I have seen anywhere to the game we already play. lol ;-) Really great layout in those books. About the best I have seen, to be honest.
This was my first set too. Played the heck out of Basic and Expert, I REALLY wish I would have kept them though. My friends and I used the heck out of it though and I figured I wouldn't need it after we made the switch to 1e. Seeing those illustrations as you were flipping through brought back all kinds of memories. What the heck WAS that sideways map at the end? I never understood it's purpose. And that version of B2 didn't have a map of the keep, being a little kid I had zero clue what a keep looked like so we didn't hang out there very much. It was just a resupply station every time we ran it. Eventually I drew a map because I repurposed the Caves of Chaos frequently over the years. Very fun!!
Great video!!!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! Yes, there is quite a bit left for a DM to create and fill out, especially with the Keep, although my copy that I showed in the video does have a (very rudimentary) map of the Keep on Page 16. For the game I run for my daughter, I found a 3D map of the Keep online and I added some extra buildings and such to where it's much bigger, almost like a small city.
I know what you mean about the side-view map in the Basic book. It always confused me as a kid, even though I liked the idea of seeing all the stuff below the Haunted Keep, but it's not really explained at all how to use it!
Basic is the ideal of the D&D game for me.
I only discovered it as an adult through OSE but now I kind of treasure going back to actual basic and interrogating it for context. The play example can lead to great deep dives on things like “pass through fire” from Chainmail. OSE is a fantastic piece of work but it’s also a gateway to this original text and its wealth of context and tradition.
And I love Halflings, Dwarves, and Elves being their own classes. It’s classes as Fantasy archetypes and I think it really works.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it.
It took me a long time to come around to this point of view. I started with Moldvay, but after a few years, thought that it was "for kids" and I focused on the "more serious" 1E. When 3E came along, I decided race-as-class made no sense.
I finally came full circle back to my roots and realized how elegant the B/X system is, and I'm so glad to be running it for my daughter and her friends!
This is the D&D I played, this and Expert.
It was great.
Back then, without internet (of course), if you lived in a rural area, it was hard to find people to play with.
After our group drifted apart, I had all the first AD&D hardback books, and spent hours creating characters and campaigns that would never see play.
Now, my daughter plays in a gaming club, and has said I should give it a go, now that access is so much easier.
But it all seems to have changed so much and there's a lot to get your head around... it's quite daunting and constantly gets pushed back to "one of the things I'll get around to, one day".
Stumbling across this channel has been a real trip down memory lane.
So cool to share your childhood game. I had the red box basic set back in the 80s. It's been long gone, unfortunately
The more I see your videos the more I enjoy your material. Would love to get you on for a Four Colour Café roundtable sometime :)
That sounds like a lot of fun! You can send me an email at samothdm at gmail and we can set something up! Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 will-do
@@daddyrolleda1 mail sent sir
Big fan of this edition. I was introduced to it via old school essentials. I didn't even know there was a basic game when I was a kid!
Thank you! I love hearing that you discovered the edition through Old School Essentials. It's such a great game and it's actually what I use at my table for the game I run for my daughter (although when I was prepping the campaign, I used my Basic boxed set). That way, I don't have to worry about food or drinks being spilled on my old set, and also the layout of OSE is far superior in terms of finding things quickly at the table. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Boy, this really takes me back! I actually started with the Holmes game - an older friend had that and was my first DM when I was 8 (Christmas 1978!). A different friend then bought the Monster manual, and we read it cover to cover for the next two years until I finally convinced my mom and dad to let me get my own D&D books. This Moldvay box became my first purchase, and I still have fond memories of playing this game with all of my friends throughout the '80s. Despite how compact they were, the writing and art in these books was amazing -- so evocative of the fantasy world that we were delving into. Even today, I can hear a certain song from the '80s on the radio and think, "Oh, yeah, we fought that vampire while this song was playing!" Sadly, I no longer have my original books, but I did pick up the PDFs. (I also have beautiful new copies of Old School Essentials, which I recommend -- it's a modern publishing of the same exact rules, but better organized and with a clean, easy-to-follow design -- but still fantastic, old-school art!) 🙂
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
And thank you for sharing your story! I love hearing how people got into the hobby and what their journey was.
Looks like you and I are the same age! I recall after I discovered Moldvay Basic that a friend had Holmes Basic, but by that time, I'd also discovered AD&D, so I didn't spend much time looking at his Holmes book. I wish I had!
And I love Old School Essentials! I have both Classic Fantasy and Advanced and it's what I actually use at the table to run the game for my daughter, which saves my old Basic Boxed Set from getting damaged from greasy fingers or spilled soda!
Thanks again!
I kept most of my books, although I sold Basic/Expert to Finance Advanced...but I wished I had kept all my notes and scratchings. Excellent video, thank you.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
As a kid, I quickly became much more enchanted by Advanced D&D, so I can understand and relate to getting rid of your B/X stuff to make money to buy more Advanced books. It wasn't until I was adult that I began to see the eloquence of the B/X system.
@@daddyrolleda1 yep I have always regreted selling them, although certainly making up for it now.
Keep up the great work. .
To this day I consider this and "BECMI" the two best versions of D&D/AD&D. They were where I started back in the early 80s and stick with them to this day.
They're both great and 99.99% compatible! There's a reason I've gone back to running this system for my daughter's campaign. Another reason is that so much creative stuff coming out from the old-school movement is designed, at least generally, to be compatible with B/X, giving me access to a lot of new ideas.
Thanks for watching and commenting.
Congratulations on the 1k subscriber milestone. Must be all the great content :)
Thank you so much! I was really surprise that it happened so quickly, especially after talking to other folks and having set an expectation that it would take nearly a year.
Thank you for your support!
I just finished reading them both! They are awesome! In the process of putting together note on how I want to run the game.
Sounds great! Thank you very much for watching and commenting.
When I first started playing we were using the original white box set and the basic rules. I remember very well playing in the Caves of Chaos module. And making several trips back to The Keep to get more arrows, oil and maybe a new PC or 3😢
When we started using the AD&D rules, only one person had the Players Handbook so we had to share that book for almost a year until our local hobby shop got some in. And only the DM had a Dungeon Masters Guide for at least a year.
This is very similar to my experiences in terms of the AD&D part. I borrowed a friend's PHB for probably a year or more before getting my own, and the only time I saw the DMG was when I checked it out at the local library. But then after I returned it, when I went back to check it out again, someone had checked it out and never returned it.
Thanks for all your comments lately! I'm really glad you found my channel!
Just found this channel… what an amazing memory trip; this was the exact set that first owned and played. Thanks for sharing… gonna watch some more now. ❤
Welcome to the channel, and thank you so much for watching, commenting, and subscribing! I'm really glad you're here and I look forward to chatting with you in the comments. Cheers!
I started playing in first grade now that I realize it and the first edition I could purchase with the one you mentioned
Oh wow! I was in 6th Grade when I got this boxed set! D&D was around (barely) when I was in 1st Grade but I'd not heard of it until years later.
Great video on my favorite edition of D&D. +1 Subscriber!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your support, and you watching and commenting! I hope you enjoy some of the other videos as well. More to come soon!
This is my first version of the game too, and it is still one of my favorite. My cousin gave me the Basic and Expert sets for my 10th birthday in July 83. I believe that the classic "red box" set was released at GenCon the next month, but I've never found anything definitive.
My Moldvey Basic set is cut up and combined with the Expert set in a binder. I still have some of my dice and modules too.
Very cool! I had friends who cut their books up and organized them in a 3-ring binder, too, but I could never bring myself to do that!
Retro-clones and which one best simulates this version of the rules for you.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
For my game, I use Old School Essentials as it's the most direct translation of the B/X rules, but with much better layout to use at the table. That said, I also use ideas from Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, DCC, Hyperborea, OSE Advanced Fantasy, 2E, 5E, Index Card RPG, and MÖRK BORG, just to name a few.
But as far as which retroclone best captures B/X, it's Old School Essentials, hands-down.
I started with the Moldvay edition but didn't own it; it belonged to a friend with whom I was playing the game. The first D&D products I owned were the three core (1E) AD&D rulebooks. My friends and I soon switched to that version. I still have my PHB, DMG and MM from back then and all of the rest of my AD&D rulebooks and supplements.
14:24 That's one rare artifact right there. Awesome 🙂
Yes, I am very lucky that I never threw out any of my old character sheets! If you see my video on Skills, you'll see one of my old 1E Paladin characters on the official gold-colored AD&D sheets!
2:33 Yeah, I had the one with the dragon, wizard and fighter-with-a-bow version. Came with the blue, same-picture booklet, also a starting module
Yup! That's Holmes Basic (edited by Eric J. Holmes)!
Yep, that's the book! I started with this. First character was a magic-user based on the stats I rolled. Died after having cast only one spell. Really storied career that magic-user. I remember being really sad about my character dying. XD
That can be very tough on a starting player. At least you stuck with it! What was your second character? Another Magic-user?
I enjoy race as class, think it makes the different races more unique while also offering up distinct playstyles. My favorite rule I think from Moldvay was that if you weren't proficient in a weapon, instead of a attack penalty like older editions, you instead did half damage. So a wizard using a sword is just roll d4s instead of d8s, which is actually a pretty cool rule and I've found in my games it encourages players to try using different weapons. I also see no harm it letting anyone train it new weapons, time is a factor in my games so I always encouraging players to use it as a resource anyway.
I think it's worth to point out that Lawrence Schick was/is also the main lore writer for Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series (Skyrim, Oblivion, etc).
Race-as-class came out as a matter of efficiency. The demi-human species were limited to one (or two classes in the case of elves), so rather than confuse new players with what was basically a superfluous non-choice, race-as-class came up.
This is by far my favorite classic book. I remember when I started to get into the game, I played hooky from 5th grace on a rainy day and was absorbed for hours.
I started with Rolemaster and AD&D, but B/X is just a divine rules set for D&D. It's probably my favourite out of all the editions old and new.
Oh wow - Rolemaster!
One of my favorite DM's mom refused to let him play D&D in the 80's because it was "satanic" but she was cool with Rolemaster, MERP, and Champions! I myself never had the fortune of playing those games.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Great overview and revisit of the classic and perhaps beginning for so many! I still have my original box seys
Thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed it, and it's nice to meet a fellow Moldvay fan who also has his original boxed sets. Thanks for watching and commenting!
For the longest time I arranged stats as STR- INT, DEX - WIS, CON - CHA. In my mind the pairings meant they were analogous. INT was mental attack, WIS defense, and CHA resilience
That's a fun way of looking at it!
@@daddyrolleda1 in retrospect, yes
But I thought it was canon! 🥴
This was my introduction to TTRPGs, the boxes are long gone, but I still have the books and one of the dice. The twenty sider was carried around in so many pockets it's nearly worn round.
Those early dice were notorious for all getting rounded off, particularly the D20, after years of use!
It's such a fun system and I'm glad to be running it again for my daughter and her friends.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I bring the die out occasionally as a lark, back when we were playing 2nd edition AD&D my players dubbed it "Old Rollee" because it would tend to go right off the table if it didn't hit something.
Thanks for the fascinating content!
Amazing copy of the players handbook. Mine has a well-used, but not over-used, look.
A few people have commented on that, and I do try really hard to keep my books in good shape despite constant use. The Player's Handbook, for whatever reason, has always retained its shiny cover. I'm not sure if it was something to do with that particular printing or what.
Thanks for commenting and for your support of the channel!
I have the 1977 version that included the In Search of the Unknown module. I still have the dice that came with it. I used enamel paints that I used to paint miniatures to fill in the numbers.
A few years after I'd been introduced to D&D, we did a D&D sleepover at a friend's house, and in his room, I saw the Holmes Boxed Set (the 1977 one you mention) that I'd never seen before. For whatever reason, at the time as a kid, it didn't really grab me, but I was very intrigued by his beat up copy of Greyhawk: Supplement I, which was my first exposure to Original D&D. He said I could have it, and to this day, I still have it!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I have the dice, book, and module from that basic set, but no box. I had NO idea that the crayons were for the dice. I would have assumed that they were for drawing the dungeon while playing or writing on a transparent character sheet cover. I notice my version of the manual and module are not 3 hole punched.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it. And wow - I have never seen a rulebook that wasn't three-hole punched! When did you get your copies?
I've found a few people here in the comments who didn't know what the crayons were for - glad to have helped answer that mystery!
@@daddyrolleda1 I do not know where it came from exactly. Probably my relative that worked at the print shop. Maybe one that did not get punched and put into a box? I am going to be cleaning out some closets for my parents (house I grew up in). Maybe I will find the box.
@@richardtorpy7881 I bet you have all kinds of treasures that folks would drool over! An unpunched copy of this would be a rarity, I would think. I've never seen or even heard of one. Not that you're looking to get rid of it, but if you could provide provenance, I suspect you could make quite a pretty penny on an auction site.
I remember something in the box saying that the crayon was for the dice, but the crayons still left my dice unreadable.
Played the edition with the lady and dragon on the front when it first came out, loved it, tried to get my family to try it but that was a hard no from all. I then played the BECMI edition for a while then I discovered other games and moved on from them, I always played solo due to noone to play it with. Still mainly play solo.
AS for controversy, When had D&D NOT been the heart of some controversy?! Besides as long as there have been geeks and nerds we have been harassed not only for our interest but how we spend our time :)
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
I, too, tried to get my sister and parents to play, to no avail. I still have their character sheets I created for them. My dad made a Fighter cleverly named "Rocky," my sister a Magic-user named Estelline, and my mom an Elf named Pokaro. I tried to DM them through an adventure but they were just completely thrown by the idea of there being no board and no official moves or anything like that. So, I mainly played with my friends by passing notes back and forth during class until we got to the weekend and then every once in a while we'd go to someone's house and play for a few hours before watching a movie or Late Night with David Letterman.
I know there are a lot of solo RPGs out there, but I've never really explored them.
I'm going to be running a B/X campaign soon, I can't wait. :)
That's awesome! I can't wait to hear about it!
When it came to my D&D adventures (when I was the Dungeon Master), I made the rule that if a player was not available to make a suggestion, but made it anyways, then the other players could no longer use that idea. If a character could not know something, then the player was informed that his character could not know that (e.g. modern physics or chemistry). Attempts at cheating would almost invariably end in disaster for the player characters.
Ha! I remember those days and trying to put one over on the DM!
I really love what you're doing. I thought about doing something like this, but I don't have as much knowledge as you, though I'm sure I could get it through research, but even then I don't think I'd do as good a job as you're doing. Thank you for making all these videos. They're really enjoyable to watch.
I appreciate that so much, and I think there's room for all kinds of content on here. You have your own niche, and I certainly don't have the stamina or skill to have have written a full fantasy novel to share with folks like you have. Cheers!
Your channel and content are great, love these overviews of old rpg materials.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that, and especially appreciate you watching and commenting!
I first tried this game back in 78-9, and the most confusing thing which at that moment put me off more than anything was the three rule sets (OD&D, Holmes basic, bits of AD&D) and magazine articles (Dragon White Dwarf & zines, (taken as gospel, even if they were not) which were bodged into Dungeons can Drag On. My opion changed as the AD&D releases arrived. WhIle the later (1981 +) editions of basic d&d have always appeared that they were released with the hindsight of AD&D; I believe they should have become AD&D light.
However the streamlining that they recieved was well worth the effort, and now again with hindsight, this is becoming the norm; action, pace and imagination compared with slavish dedication with 'somebody else's story'. New to your channel and I hope this version of the game has the same inspiration on your daughter that it had on you.
I am so glad you found my channel, and I thank you so much for watching, commenting, and sharing your RPG story! I love hearing about people's initial exposure to the game and their thoughts at the time.
I think, at this point, my daughter's main interest in the game lies in "scheduled time to hang out with her friends." The friends she plays with now are ones she's known since Daycare or Kindergarten, but none of them go to the same schools with each other, so D&D is one of the only times they see each other. She doesn't talk about the game outside of actual game time, like I would have at her age! But, my hope is that she sees I'm doing this *for* her so she and I can spend time doing something together, which has become more difficult the older she gets and develops her own interests. I suspect when she's older, she'll look back with fondness on this time, however long it lasts.
Thank you again, and I hope you stick around to find other videos you like!
I think I like the slightly rounded serif font used in this book better than the AD&D sans serif font; it just looks friendlier to me.
I think "friendlier" is a great way to put it. It definitely is more approachable for a younger audience, I think. The AD&D font and layout, to me, looks more like a text book. As a kid, though, I thought the AD&D books were really cool because I felt like an adult just reading them, with all the fancy words and such!
There's a website out there that codifies and provides examples of all the fonts used across every edition of D&D if you can find it. It's really interesting.
My first D&D rule set too! I was able to get a real good copy on eBay. Dice still unopened.
Ahh, you have your original dice, it warms my hear to see them! Congrats on breaking 1k and on another great video.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that! And yes, I'm a bit of a packrat (as you saw, not only do I have my original dice, but also my very first character sheet!). But I'm very organized - all my old D&D notes, maps, drawings, characters, etc., are all in different file folders, color-coded, with labels/tabs, in my filing cabinet.
Again, I can't promise this is good advice, just what I want; but I am designing a game, and would love to see a rules overview of the very first edition, including an overview/appraisal of the dice math, and the rules stripped down to SRD length, and laid out. And then to compare how future rules changed things.
And then compared to other systems.
I'd love to see the modular systems that comprise these games compartmentalized and compared. Depending on the system, and the dice, many game systems can be swapped with other complementary systems
By really looking, comparing and appraising, it would allow us to see which rule modules work best for which kinds of play, and maybe how to condense, or streamlime things, by combining some, or creating interesting new ones.
As always, a great vid, thanks!
Haha. Yeah at 2:10. That is the first book in D&D that I got. I actually read the manuals than I ever did get people to play.
That's great you had that edition! All these years later, I've still not added a copy of the Holmes Basic Set to my collection.
Awesome video! Really great explanation amd history,B/X is my favorite version!
Mine, too! Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
@@daddyrolleda1 will you be making a video on the expert set?
It's rather funny how d10's having the other actually marked with tens was a significant technological breakthrough. I actually remember getting a set with two different colored d10's which was already am improvement 😅 Maybe part of the reason I never quite liked d% based systems or thieves' skills in BECMI. 😆
So many other games I got back in the 80's were all percentile based games, like Star Frontiers, Top Secret, and Marvel Super Heroes, and all of them came with two different colored D10s numbered 0-9! I have way more of those than I do ones numbers with 10's!
@@daddyrolleda1 Yup 😆
5:24 accidentally kept your og set in better condition so it's more valuable as a collectors item. Lol.
What a cool thing to be able to pass down to your kids
I tend to take really good care of my stuff, including books, comics, and games. I even kept all my boxes that my Lego sets came in (unfolded and pressed flat) and the backs of every Star Wars figure I ever bought (some are missing the proof-of-purchase that I mailed in to get my free figures, like Boba Fett, sadly without the jet pack that actually fired a missile).
And yes, one day, my entire D&D/TTRPG collection will go to my daughter. I do hope she'll want to keep it!!!
How did you set up the camera to look at the book like that?
Ha - you would honestly laugh if you could see my set up. It's quite ridiculous as I'm just using my phone, a few boxes stacked up, and yard-sticks placed across to hold my phone. It's not very stable but with the space I have, it's the only solution I could think of. I know it's not professional but it seems to be getting the job done.
@@daddyrolleda1 ill try it out
I played the Expert edition. I enjoyed it. I think race and class came in in AD&D. I like having both available but this was basic set.
The separation of race and class started in Original D&D after the Greyhawk supplement came out, and the Thief class was introduced (as the rules noted that dwarves, elves, halflings, and half-elves could all be Thieves with no level limits, in addition to acting as Fighters for Dwarves and Halflings or Fighter/Magic-Users for Elves and Half-Elves). Holmes Basic kept that distinction by allowing demi-humans to be Thieves as well. AD&D also separated race and class but opened up the options a bit more (half-elves could be rangers, all races could also be assassins, etc.).
It was the B/X (Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert) that first made a race-as-class version of the game. That was the one I started with but we quickly began incorporating rules from AD&D into our game.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
The version (1977) that I started with only allowed 3d6 to be rolled for abilities; they were rolled in order (no choosing where the ability scores went), you could be any race, but races were limited in which classes they could be. Halflings could be thieves, but dwarves were limited to fighter only, iirc. Gnomes could be MU's (I think), but had to be illusionists (a new class defined in Dragon Magazine). Elves could be magic users, fighters, thieves, OR fighter-magic users. Half-elves could be any class (iirc). HP were d8 for fighters, d6 for clerics, d4 for MU's and thieves (and were rolled!). I could really suck for the poor guys who rolled 1's, let me tell you!
We had not come up with the concept of simply reusing a character that had already been rolled--don't ask me why. I mean, we were all honor-roll students. One of us was a valedictorian. We are talking eastern Massachusetts, with a high school of 1000 students and graduating classes of >200. So no small feat. We never actually considered it. We did, however, come up with the idea of having NPC's who were pre-rolled characters. Gene Eric, the Cleric was a favorite (nobody wanted to be the cleric). It was not very long, however, before the Player's Handbook came out and rescued our players from their drudgery!
What a great story! Thank you for sharing!
It sounds like you were probably playing either Original D&D or perhaps Holmes Basic, but incorporating articles from Dragon magazine (Ranger, Illusionist, and Bard all appeared in the Strategic Review and/or Dragon before being made official in the 1978 Advanced D&D Player's Handbook - I have a video about those classes). Original D&D and Holmes Basic allowed any race to be a Thief, but otherwise, Dwarves and Halflings had to be Fighters, and Elves and Half-Elves were Fighter/Magic-Users. Gnomes did not debut as an official player character class until the 1978 PHB.
My group in Junior High School consisted of the art kids and the "almost drop-outs" but then my family moved states (and schools, obviously) and it took me awhile to find a group, but in High School that group consisted of a wide cross section: our school's Valedictorian and Salutatorian, me (I was in the Top 10 of our school at graduation), a guy whose brother had been expelled for fighting, stealing, and drug-use, and a computer whiz who had no social skills and who oddly was doing very poorly in school despite being exceptionally smart. We all just kind of "found" each other.
Thanks again!
Wish I still had mine. Cut mine up and put it in a binder but no idea where it went from there. Still have the dice.
Most of my friends cut apart their Basic and Expert books and put them in a binder. I thought about it but I actually didn't own the Expert book until more than a decade later, so the temptation to do so was much less.
@ my Mom got me a highlighter and I went to town on T1… still have that someplace with block and blocks of text highlighted.
14:14 That illustration on the Alignment page stuck with me for SO long!
Not sure why, but I suspect it was the totally disinterested knight
I loved that picture as a kid, and honestly spent way too much time trying to figure out which of the characters was Chaotic and which was Neutral (the cleric seemed to be the Lawful one). Most folks would say the thief-looking character who is trying to stab the goblin (?) is Chaotic and the fighter who is looking away is Neutral, but I also thought it was possible the Thief was Neutral and just doing what made the most sense, dispassionately dispatching a goblin whom they couldn't afford to leave there but also couldn't bring along with them for fear of him revealing their position and/or trying to escape, etc. And then the Fighter's kind of reveling in the Chaos, smugly enjoying the moment. Probably not a great interpretation, but 13yo me was confused!
@@daddyrolleda1 whoa! I never thought about it that way
To me it was clearly: "I wanna kill 'im." (Chaos) - "No, you mustn't!" (Law) - "Whatever, {yawn} hurry up." (Neutrality)
Nice review, I just subscribed. I started playing with Homes box set.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that, and I just returned the favor. Looking forward to going through some of your AD&D videos like the one on Descent Into the Depths of the Earth. Cheers!
Dude... you gotta crayon those dice.
Ha! It's been ~43 years... I think at this point I'll just leave them. I'm glad I found the crayon, though. I thought I'd lost it years ago.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Really my only criticisms of race-as-class are that it always makes me want more races and their classes in game, that the halfling could use a little more emphasis on stealth rather than hit and run ranged combat (B/X Halflings are the precursor to 4e Rangers LOL), and that the Elf is too close to a human wizard mechanically and his spell list should be different.
Totally get where you're coming from, and I do always struggle with wanting more classes in a class-and-level system, but also knowing that too many classes begins to bog down the game and also create more and more niche classes that are only good in certain situations.
For B/X, I've created three new classes (Alchemist, Demolitionist, and Inventor) that I think are different enough to stand apart (one could argue that an Alchemist could simply just be a magic-user using potions/items versus spells, but I wanted them to be different). And, I'm finishing up a new spell list that can be used for an "alternate" magic-user (like a sorcerer, maybe) but also makes a good spell-list for elves to help differentiate them from human magic-users.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
Great video!!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it! I had a lot of fun putting that one together.
@Daddy Rolled a 1, The Dice and Dragons T-shirt is cool. Shame you don't have it in larger unisex sizes.
@@drzander3378 I basically picked all the sizes and options they have available. Sometimes certain colors have fewer options but they should go from XS all the way to 5XL and some also have "long" versions as well. Let me know what you're looking for and I'll see what I can do. You can send me an email at samothdm AT gmail DOT com if you want.
That's the box I started with so many years ago in 82. But I lost the box and even the cover to the rulebook by '83.
Oh no! Hopefully that didn't prevent you from continuing to play!
If you ever wanted to replace it, I have actually seen folks selling just the box on 3rd party sites and places like Ebay.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really enjoy hearing about how people got into the hobby and their RPG journey. Cheers!
I tend to forget about the "engagement mechanics" of YT and have a plebian frame of reference in this regard.
I was gifted with the "Holmes Blue Book" and also made use of library materials. The only problem was that my friends were playing Moldvey Basic and I was trying to keep up and learn with Holmes and AD&D materials.
Oddly, it wasn't until 2nd ed. dropped that my apostasy saw redemption, as it was clear that BX could reconciled in AD&D terms (and with more economical page counts than the RC). Of course, 2e was not gladly received by the fan base initially and someone who liked *Basic* (use the "gas-face" when you say it) was more than suspect...
Long boring sob story to say: "hey, thanks for the video!"
Mine too!
Jermaine: Hey Brett, have you colored your dice with crayons?
Brett: I don’t want to rub crayons on my dice.
Jermaine: Yeah but you can’t read the numbers; you color yellow dice with a red crayon, blue dice with a white crayon, and then wipe the wax off with a T-Shirt.
Brett: No.
I honestly thought I'd screw up my dice if I used the crayon! Not sure why I was so anxious about it!
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, I was too. That’s why I imagined the Brett and Jermaine. Cheers!
So, I have no idea what kind of availability B/X had in Japan, or if the creators actually played it or not, but there's an old anime that always struck me as straight B/X. Record of Lodoss War, and it had the Fighter, the Cleric, the Magic User, the Thief, the Dwarf and the Elf (don't recall off the top of my head if there was a Halfling or not.)
I like race as class a lot. My first RPG was the West End Games Star Wars, and I think that really colored my perceptions. It wasn't hard for me to see "the dwarf" as a sort of iconic figure similar to Chewie being "the wookie." Later, Gazeteers expanded non-human options and I kind of like those better than AD&D. I don't know. I kind of would like a compendium of all the Gazeteer rules expansions together, but I guess that's what the OSR is for,
shame shame!!!! you did not use the crayons!!!!🤣 this was my first rule book too still love basic D&D and also BECMI too. THACO always made sense to me too. 🤣
Ha! Yeah, I really thought "what if I screw this up? What am I going to tell my mom? How am I going to get more dice?" Silly, I know, but I was a bit of an anxious kid!
Nice to meet another Moldvay Basic fan!
I had this, Xmas 1982 I think
I got mine in Easter 1982 but had started playing in late fall/early winter 1981. Cheers!
BX is my favorite version of the game because it was the game I started with in about 1982. Compared to AD&D, it doesn't have all those details that bog down the AD&D game. I don't really care that AD&D has more than one kind of pole arm. I don't think the superstrength feature for fighters in AD&D is a better game mechanic than Modvay/1981 rules. The bonuses/penalties in this version of the game are streamlined. Its funny to see how many players back in the day would turn up their nose at "Basic" and play AD&D but now the Basic-retro-clones seem to do better than the AD&D-retro-clones.
We started at almost the exact same time! And yes, the B/X system has become the favorite of the OSR community, and I've also returned to it after thinking, back in the 80's, that it was "for kids."
Thanks for sharing your history of playing the game. I always enjoy reading about other people's experiences!
Great video! All of your stuff is very informative. I was wondering if you could comment on the differences in initiative and combat between Basic D&D and AD&D 1e?
The reason is that I feel that I have always kept just playing Basic D&D over the years, while adopting the AD&D 1e source material, races and classes. I don't use weapon AC adjustments or speed factors. Are my friends any I the only ones who do this? We use the AD&D 1e books exclusively, but kind of stick with Basic mechanics if that makes sense.
Ha! To answer the second part of your question... almost everybody I have met in the "old school" scene played EXACTLY the same way you and your friends did (including me)! I started with B/X and when we discovered AD&D, we just assumed it was an extension (not a separate game) so we dropped in the new classes and races and spells and weapons, increased the Hit Dice, and ignored everything else. We *never* used Weapon Speed Factors or Weapon vs AC or anything like that.
This is a perfect example of how people will refer to pre-3E D&D as being "rules light," but to me, AD&D is *more* complex than 3E!
The first part of our question is a bit more complicated, but in general:
* AD&D combat rounds add the complexity of "segments" (1 second, or 1/10 of a round) with the first six segments being devoted to Initiative stuff. B/X does not have this level of complexity.
Actually, I was going to type this all out, but I would refer to:
1) This document which details and annotates the D&D order of combat: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/knights-n-knaves.com/dmprata/ADDICT.pdf
It's multiple pages with exceptions and clarifications and details.
2) The B/X Order of Combat can be read from the Old School Essential SRD (Old School Essentials is a retro-clone of B/X but the rules are 99.9999% faithful but just cleaning up the layout and also reconciling any discrepancies between Basic and Expert, of which there are just a small handful): oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Combat#Combat_Sequence_Per_Round
The B/X order is much cleaner and simplistic, but it would rely on a DM to make a ruling for situations it doesn't cover, whereas AD&D seeks to create fringe, specific rules for every minute situation that could possibly come up in combat (but, to me, still fails at trying to do so and adds in unnecessary complexity).
Thanks for the response!
I played the Moldvay Basic and Expert sets and then graduated to AD&D and 2e. AD&D really did seem advanced, but it had a ton of stuff I'd never play with, like rolling monthly for disease and aerial combat maneuvers clearly taken from wargames. I never liked race as class, but then the old games have a lot of problems that could be cleaned up easily to make them nice, streamlined d20 roll-high games. I don't get why so many people make retro-clones with attack matrixes and other clumsy mechanics. We know better now! Fix that stuff!
Was race as class really new? In OD&D, dwarves and halflings could only be fighters. Elves had their weird multiclass thing going. Even if they were theoretically different, they were really tied together and effectively race as class.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I'm actually working on an entire video on this subject (it's been requested a lot). While mechanically OD&D with just the three first books (no supplements) work out close to "race-as-class," it wasn't really *presented* that way in the books. The rules say that if you want to play a Dwarf (for example), you "may opt only for the fighting class." Once you add Supplement I: Greyhawk and the Thief class, the rules allow any non-human race to operate as a Thief as well. Holmes Basic continues this by saying Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings can be Thieves (but it does say to refer to AD&D for rules on demi-human bonuses or penalties for Thief abilities).
It wasn't until Moldvay that the language became specific. You're no long playing a Dwarf *Fighter.* You're playing a Dwarf.
Again, I do take your point: mechanically, there's pretty much no difference. But it's more about presentation of the rules, plus by the time Moldvay comes out in 1981, the Thief class had existed for 6 years but they opted not to allow non-humans to operate in the class.
I am thinking of starting again after decades for my 10 year old son and nephew. Do you have video or will you do new comparing basic/expert with ADnD for this context? As bonus add Old School Essentials.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! And I'm really excited to hear that you're planning a game with your 10 year-old son and nephew! My daughter was just barely past 10 years old when I started my campaign for her and her friends (she's 14 now).
Someone else suggested this idea of differences in rules between editions, so it's definitely something I can tackle in a video. It's a great topic idea. So you don't have to wait too long, here's a *very short* rundown, as I see it:
- Basic (B/X) is more streamlined and much more open to DM rulings. It doesn't attempt to create a rule for everything.
- Basic has "race as class" so you play an Elf or a Dwarf, not an Elf Thief or Dwarf Wizard, for example. It's based on the initial concepts from OD&D and the idea was that these "race-as-classes" represented the "quintessential" version of that race.
- Basic has no multi-classing or dual-classing
- AD&D is *much* more complex. Weapon speed factors, Weapon vs AC, Combat Rounds broken down into "Segments" with different actions on different segments, etc. It adds more races and more classes but has (what appear to be) arbitrary rules on which race can operate as which class, limitations on multi-classing, demi-human level limits, and more. Humans can "dual class" (start as one class, then switch to another class, but they start over from scratch, losing their attack bonuses, saves, etc., - everything except their HP, *until* the second class surpasses the first class in level, at which point you can combine the abilities from both classes. It's *very* clunky).
- AD&D *attempts* to have a rule for everything, but that's really impossible, so it ends up creating odd situations where you'd assume a rule should exist, but can't find it, unlike in Basic where you know it's your job as the DM to make a ruling and then be consistent about applying the rule going forward.
- Many rules that players need in AD&D are actually in the Dungeon Masters Guide, not the Players Handbook. It's counter-intuitive.
- Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy takes the 1981 B/X rules (Basic and Expert) and re-states them with all new layout and organization, but without changing the rules. The only *changes* come about due to inconsistencies between the original Basic and Expert rules. In those cases, Old School Essentials has to pick which one was "correct" - they usually default to whatever was done in BECMI or the Rules Cyclopedia. These changes are very minimal, however. The layout is done to make is much easier to find certain rules - key topics are presented on two-page spreads (e.g., each character class is presented as a 2-page spread, to prevent page-flipping, etc.).
* Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy seeks to take the fun new ideas from Advanced D&D, such as the new races, classes, weapons, spells, monsters, and treasures, and craft them using B/X mechanics. This means simplifying many things while retaining the "flavor" of AD&D. There are also rules in here for separating race-and-class and for multi-classing, so if that's something you'd like, but you want to retain the elegance of the B/X rules engine, then OSE Advanced Fantasy is for you. It's honestly very close to how I played the game back in the early to mid-80's before I understood that B/X and Advanced were two separate games.
I hope that helps you out, but please feel free to ask other questions! And also you may want to check out my Campaign Prep videos - they're all about the game I run for my daughter and her friends: ua-cam.com/play/PLX6jue56rzl2-VzZH19Ke2NU4r0IaJ7be.html
@@daddyrolleda1 Amazing answer! Thank you!! Are the B/X modules compatible with OSEs? Also, I agree your voice is well suited for conveying this subject matter and your videos are great!
@@pscaglione3 I'm glad it helped!
And yes, anything created for B/X is 100% compatible with OSE. And, you could also use pretty much any BECMI module with OSE as well.
I tend to play a little "fast-and-loose" so in my daughter's game, they went through B2: Keep on the Borderlands (created for Basic) but they just finished that so now they've traveled to a little fishing town called Saltmarsh and I'm using the old *Advanced* D&D Module U1: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. Even though it was made for Advanced, it's pretty easy to convert on the fly and ignore the stuff that isn't part of Basic.
I really appreciate your support. Thank you!
I think a better way to describe Prime Requisite would be that your Character is good at what he does therefore advances a little faster.
Yes, definitely. For whatever reason, it seems to be a "hot button" with folks who don't like that a class that's already got a leg-up due to bonuses from high ability scores *also* gets another bonus in XP. But, I don't tend to worry about that kind of that too much.
@@daddyrolleda1 instead of saying good at what he does I should have said they have an innate ability and they advance a little faster. Some guys are just extra talented compared to the norm in any given profession.
I never realized people had issues with it.
@@swirvinbirds1971 I think it's mainly folks who are used to more modern systems. I don't recall folks back in the day complaining about it.
Also, I don't find race as a class that big a deal. Holmes started the concept to make an introductory version of OD&D. So if people really want race seperate from class, all they have to do is the same thing Holmes did and make a new list is more XP per level.
Race-as-class is something that seems to bug a lot of people, and I used to think it wasn't great when I was a kid, but I've come back around and am using that mechanic in the B/X game I run for my daughter and her friends. Thanks for watching and commenting!
As you flipped though, was there something about each alignment having its own language/code? How did that work, and did it stick around in any later editions?
That is a great question, and could even make a somewhat short video topic!
But, to answer your question: Alignment languages debuted in Original D&D (the three little brown books or "White Box"), and were kept through the so-called "Basic" editions of the game (Holmes / Moldvay / Mentzer / Rules Cyclopedia, etc.) and were also a part of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition. They disappear by the time 2nd Edition Advanced D&D is published.
The idea was that characters could speak this language and thus identify and converse in secret with others of their alignment. Additionally, while not being able to speak Lawful, for example, a Chaotic character/creature could identify that the other person was speaking Lawful and thereby identify them as an enemy.
In Original D&D (and its "Basic" descendants), there were three alignment languages: Lawful, Neutrality, and Chaotic.
In AD&D, this got expanded to there being a total of nine alignment languages to match the nine-point alignment system.
While Gary originally says that creatures/characters can converse in these languages (as though they were "full" operating languages), in the Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide from 1979, he backtracks on this a bit and says:
"...alignment languages are the special set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos. Alignment languages are NEVER flaunted in public. They are not used as salutations or interrogatives if the speaker is uncertain of the alignment of those addressed. Furthermore, alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues."
In this section, he talks about secret languages, such as Thieves' Cant and secret organizations using "signs, signals, and recognition phrases" to communicate (much like the Freemasons, for example - that's my addition, not Gary's). Gary then goes on to equate alignment languages as being similar to how priests of the medieval Catholic Church communicated via Latin as a common language to cut across cultural boundaries.
He also makes it clear that you cannot learn an alignment language from an alignment you don't belong to, and if you switch alignments, you lose the ability to communicate in your former alignment language. He doesn't explain why or how you'd forget, but "mechanically" your character can no longer speak that language.
All this, to me, makes it clear that had hadn't really thought through the exact usage and background for alignment languages, and was later trying to retcon the idea after so many people asked questions about it.
Hope that helps explain it a bit!
@@daddyrolleda1 Huh. Thanks for the explanation! Did you ever use alignment languages in your games?
Well they were never as famous as Bargle. But Morgan Ironwolf and Black Dougal lived after,
Ah, Morgan Ironwolf... 😀
I just found your channel this past week and have been devouring your videos; I can't get enough of them. As for the racial character classes, I personally don't like them at all. Why would ALL dwarves be "fighters," or ALL elves be "fighter/mages?" Limiting an entire race to a single "class" seems very silly to me.
Thank you so much! I"m so glad you found my channel and have been enjoying my content. And I really appreciate you leaving a comment!
For years (decades!) I felt the same way about race-as-class. As soon as I discovered 1E, I decided B/X D&D was "for kids" and long held to the idea that not having Dwarf Clerics or Halfling Thieves made no sense.
I've come around a bit to the mechanical elegance of the design now for the game I'm running for my daughter, and it certainly made it easier to help the players get started playing, as they had no context of D&D or the idea of splitting race-from-class. However, all that said, I think as they continue to play and introduce new characters, I may end up using Old School Essentials "Advanced Fantasy," which has an option for splitting race from class. We'll see!
Thank you again!
This is the best edition of D&D and Tom Moldvay is my favourite game designer.
After watching this I edited to add my feelings on race as class which is that I prefer it. I also like that there are less classes, it keeps the game focused and prevents people from stepping on each other's toes.
I agree with all of this! Tom Moldvay was a great designer, and I really gravitate toward the pulp-style adventures he wrote for D&D in addition to this version of the rules.
I've also really been liking the 7-class system from Moldvay. It's working really well in the game I run for my daughter and her friends.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Pulp D&D is the best D&D cough cough Conan cough cough. Out of curiosity what is your favorite Moldvay Module? Mine is B4: The Lost City it takes a particular kind of genius to fit an epic campaign into 28 pages, Keep on the Borderlands has the same page count yet isn't as packed full of content. X2: Castle Amber is close by a razor thin margin and I would be remiss if I didn't mention B3: Palace of the Silver Princess though it can't be completely credited to him, though I think he learned a lot from what Jean Wells made that led to Castle Amber's brilliance.
As for you running a game for your daughter that is very sweet and a great way to bond with your child.
You're welcome for the comments when I find a UA-camr that I like and I feel deserves more recognition I try to appease the algorithm gods. They require tributes of likes and comments.
This is such a great comment! You hit my favorite Tom Moldvay module - B4: The Lost City. I recall when I got that adventure, on vacation once again in Denver (my dad went there a lot when we were kids, for business, and we'd often tag along to make it a "vacation"). I was at the Waldenbooks at the local mall and my dad's cousin's wife saw me looking at the module, and she bought it for me. It's long been one of my favorites.
Not sure if you ever watch the UA-cam channel DungeonCraft with Professor Dungeon Master, but he's going to be doing a series soon about his B4 campaign and I'm really looking forward to it!
Thanks again for your support. I truly appreciate it!
@@daddyrolleda1 Awesome yeah B4 is my favorite module of all time, I'm glad you are a man of culture and taste.
As for Professor Dungeon Master I used to watch him and thought his content was alright but then he did a video where he tried to argue that 5E combat is just as lethal as BX combat. When someone says something that is so delusional and false they lose credibility to me and I find it hard to be interested in their other content and opinions.
I have a disdain for 5E and the mentally/community, this is mostly due to my experience with playing with 5E players and maybe that's just my experience. I don't run 5E anymore because of how bad it got and I don't want to go back so I get annoyed whenever someone tries to justify 5Es philosophy but just my personal opinion.
It was cheaper to include crayons than to paint the numbers on the dice?
I'm not sure about cheaper but I think back then no companies had dice with the numbers already filled in (I could be completely wrong on this, though). In any event, TSR's dice didn't have that capability at the time, it seems. Filling them in my hand would've been prohibitively expensive. Eventually, of course, they switched to dice that were created with the numbers already pre-painted.
I understand the usage but I am always sad they used the term basic and then other game the time was advanced when they’re both very good (and honestly not *that* different) systems.
I started in 3.0(late 2e if you count video games) so I’m sad I missed this when it was the current box set but I’ve looked at it and built some characters to kind of run my own solo party. I would love to find someone to play some of the older editions with
I didn’t mention my reason for discounting that it is called basic makes it seem like it was not as sophisticated when it was cashed that more for the levels it covered
@@Mellence Oh, I totally get it. I first learned with this set, but only a few months after, I was exposed to the "Advanced" set, and the marketing of that name totally captivated my friends and me, who thought we were special for playing that edition.
Of course, what we actually did was incorporate "Advanced" stuff like new classes, races, spells, and weapons into the "Basic" game we were playing, because we didn't actually read the rules to understand they were technically different games. And while they are fundamentally similar, there are a series of mechanical things that are different enough that they're technically not *exactly* compatible.
These days, I don't worry about that, and am back to mix-and-matching both versions in the game I run for my daughter and her friends. Nobody knows any different.
I don't play video games, but while I started playing with this 1981 boxed set, in terms of actual number of hours of playing, I've played the most of 3E/3.5.
Finding a group can be super hard. I was lucky to have one that consisted of my kid and the people she met in preschool (but who are all high schoolers now, but we kept in touch with them and their parents over the years).
I hope this doesn't sound pedantic in case you've tried these options, but if you considered a D&D MeetUp, or visiting a local game store to see if they have a "new player's night" or posting an ad on a message board or whatever social media thing the kids are using these days?
Also... thank you so much for watching and commenting! You are always welcome here to chat about the characters you've made and any other things you'd like to chat about.
@@daddyrolleda1 a lot of people in my area play 5th edition which I don’t mind but it’s not my preferred edition. Also sorry for so many typos, I’m glad you were still able to understand me!
I’ve contemplated doing some effort to make it work in Tabletop Simulator or Fantasy Grounds to my liking but that still needs a group to do it, though remote groups are easier to find like minded individuals than just whatever is in my area
@@Mellence I understood you just fine! No worries!
You'll find a group soon - I'm sure of it! Hang in there, and happy gaming!
I do get it that it's more difficult to find groups more interested in playing earlier editions. But they are out there.