Honestly rough rules and gygaxian contradictions aside. It was a simpler game that was far more balanced than anything released since. Assuming you left the psionics and Bards out of it. Many hate it because it had less options, many hate it because it was often run in nity gritty games with lot's of death and destruction but not all games were run that way and if you gave out xp fairly and worked out the contradictory rules it was a fairly balanced game. A fact that is often lost when people see the lower level wizard and paladin running with the higher level thief and fighter. They can't get past the modern video games where everyone has the same level. With white wolf, dragon magazine and all the other things you had by the 80's it was also a healthier, younger, happier ecosystem than this middle aged game with it's pot bellied whiney old guys and gals who are all arm chair party leaders and game designers telling us all how much better they can do it.
D&D 1E Edition Experience: Did/Do you Play 1E AD&D? How Was/Is It?
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
This is a good point.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Yeah, no other edition has come close to 1E's vibes. Every edition since has come dangerously close to being a bad textbook, while Gygax's 1E books felt like forbidden tomes that were giving you a peek into something cool and mysterious.
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Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
Eh. I don't think I can grant that about balance. Especially given how one of the most common pieces of advice to new players and DMs getting into old-school play is to abandon any devotion to balance. As for simpler...
I think most folks who opine that AD&D was simple were never playing it by the book. IME a lot of folks came to AD&D from the Basic/Expert or BECMI lines and substituted simpler rules from those games for the initiative system, for example, or massively reduced the complexity of the rules by ignoring a lot of them.
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ART!
Deluxe Unhuman
Played the bejeebus out of this back when it was the current edition. I couldn't list the differences between it and other editions, other than it was before the addition of things like skills, feats, subclasses - and it could be that there were things like that in AD&D and I'm just not remembering.
In my experience, I never met anyone who played Basic. But yes, no one followed every single rule in AD&D - Weapon Speed Factor and weapon type versus armor type were ignored by everyone I played with.
Every gamer I know who played AD&D started with AD&D.
Some did own and read Red Box, and of course we played adventures from Basic, but we never actually played by Basic rules - nobody I know had a character whose class was elf.
Might be an age thing. I was 9 when the PHB was published.
no it was freaking expensive. 20 bucks for the AD&D book 20 bucks for the GameMaster's guide. The boxed sets about the same. I think sunk costs tended to keep players in whichever group they started in.
just checked an inflation calculator. 20 bucks in 1977 was the same spending power as 104 dollars and change now. Generally whichever version someone started with they stayed with because of sunk costs. So you had to have 40 dollars or 208 equivilant todays dollars to start the game. Or do what we did and split the cost and I bought the DMG and my buddy bought the players handbook.
The game actually got cheaper they were still 20 bucks in 1984 and that was 64 modern dollars. But you had more books. in 2000 those 30ish dollar 3rd edition books were about 50 bucks in purchsing power now. The hobby got steadily cheaper with more books for those with disposable cash. The cost adjusted for inflation for full retail on books has stayed pretty level since 2000.
just checked an inflation calculator. 20 bucks in 1977 was the same spending power as 104 dollars and change now. Generally whichever version someone started with they stayed with because of sunk costs. So you had to have 40 dollars or 208 equivilant todays dollars to start the game. Or do what we did and split the cost and I bought the DMG and my buddy bought the players handbook.
The game actually got cheaper they were still 20 bucks in 1984 and that was 64 modern dollars. But you had more books. in 2000 those 30ish dollar 3rd edition books were about 50 bucks in purchsing power now. The hobby got steadily cheaper with more books for those with disposable cash. The cost adjusted for inflation for full retail on books has stayed pretty level since 2000.
Clint_L
Hero
I voted for the first option, "I played it, and I remember liking it," even though that is WAY too moderate a description of the passionate love that I had for AD&D. I frikken memorized the core three books, and all I wanted to do was play AD&D.
That said, there's no way that it was the simplest or most balanced version of the game. I mean, not even close, IMO. It had bespoke rules and tables for everything; two thirds of which no one used, and balance was barely a consideration. A level 1 magic-user was essentially dead weight once they used their one sleep spell, paladins and rangers were just better than fighters, and so on.
That said, there's no way that it was the simplest or most balanced version of the game. I mean, not even close, IMO. It had bespoke rules and tables for everything; two thirds of which no one used, and balance was barely a consideration. A level 1 magic-user was essentially dead weight once they used their one sleep spell, paladins and rangers were just better than fighters, and so on.
Jelly Bean
RPG Dabbler
My only comment would be that I think the golden age of gaming is right now. We have a worldwide network to contact other players and GMs, VTTs to allow games over that network and nothing stopping you playing original D&D if you want to, or the many thousands of other games.
Played AD&D 1e and liked it. Still have the books.
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