D&D 1E Edition Experience: Did/Do you Play 1E AD&D? How Was/Is It?

[Edgar Ironpelt]

As a 1e player (and to some extent a pre-1e player) it was 'the only game in town.' As a 1e DM, I really wanted to house-rule the heck out of it (and when TFT came out, I immediately changed my campaign over to that system).

OK, not literally the only game in town. I also played some 1st/2nd edition Runequest.

In hindsight, D&D games back then tended to be fun despite the annoyances in the rules - or in some cases the annoyances in the lack of rules. At the time, there was a lot of not knowing any better. The state of RPG theory (what makes a good rule set, what makes a good game) was really primitive back then.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I played red box in middle school, but kids in the neighborhood weren't into it. In high school I played ad&d 1e. I loved it, but I loved it for what it had the potential to be rather than what it was at the time. Every table had a different set of rules they actually played. It was less a game and more an art kit. And not a namby-pamby paint by numbers guide but "Here's a chunk of ochre and some linn seeds, grind them and make your own paint."

I feel the people who are nostalgic about it are also the type to be nostalgic over 1970s computer clubs, where you had to know wood working to build cases for your breadboard computers. It was less about what they created and more that they were able to create anything at all. Artisinal for artistry's sake.

The campaign itself feels almost secondary to the sense of accomplishment of actually having run a campaign. (I feel that way about 1st ed Shadowrun and would never play that again either, but SR3 or even SR2 I'd play for sure)

I'm glad game cons and the internet exist for those people because otherwise it would require winning some kind of karmic lottery for them to find a suitable group in their immediate vicinity that wasn't playing 5e.

 

[aco175]

My PHB still has a $12 price tag from 1982.

$12.00 then if just under $40.00 today. Those books also lasted.

We started just around this time where my father bought the red basic box and we started playing ,but also the 1e books started coming out so we bought them as well not knowing much difference. Eventually we had all the 1e stuff and the red box sat on the shelf. I recall playing a lot with the neighborhood kids and having sleepovers on Friday where my father would DM for a set core of the kids. Some of us were more into things than others and I think only me and my father still play from that time. My younger brother started with 2e I think.

 

[Voadam]

The first RPG I played and the first RPG I DMd.

I mostly learned from Moldvay Basic (which I got and played a bunch after that first AD&D game), but 1e was the game I actually ran. Going from Moldvay to Gygax made the Gygax game easier to learn.

 

[nevin]

My PHB still has a $12 price tag from 1982.

You might be thinking of 2e?

nope I paid 20 dollars for each in 1977 in biloxi Mississippi at the local game shop.

err I paid 20 for one and My friend paid 20 for the other...

 

[Orius]

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.

Yeah I wouldn't call 1e simple.

I think the thing with 1e is that the people who've been playing it for 35-40 years or more have long since house ruled whatever problems they had with the game and they're familiar with it. While 1e is complex and convoluted in core, it has fewer add-ons than its successors too so there's not as much added to it, especially if a group doesn't like the additional material and ignores it. And how many people really played a "pure" 1e game too? There was a lot of mixing with D&D back in the early and mid-80's. That didn't really fall off until the 2e days, and probably mostly because D&D stopped being effectively published as a separate line. I think that's when players started playing only a single edition, because that's all that was available.

 

[Mannahnin]

nope I paid 20 dollars for each in 1977 in biloxi Mississippi at the local game shop.

err I paid 20 for one and My friend paid 20 for the other...

The MM in 1977 and PH in 1978 were $9.95 MSRP and advertised at those prices by TSR (see Dragon issue #11 for example). The DMG was $15 in 1979 (see mention in Sage Advice, Dragon 33, for confirmation).

Sorry to hear that store in Biloxi apparently gouged you, charging the equivalent of $101.07 in today's dollars for a PH!

 

[Lanefan]

In my experience, I never met anyone who played Basic.

I have, but their Basic-playing came after they'd played 1e rather than before.

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.

Ayup. And the initiative system as written; such a mess.

Every gamer I know who played AD&D started with AD&D.

I think that's also true for me, but I don't know everyone's early-days history so one or two might have slipped through.

 

[John Dallman]

Ayup. And the initiative system as written; such a mess.

A friend once claimed he'd figured out how it was meant to work. The system he explained was a bit complicated, but didn't require a lot of twisting of the words in the book. He tried running a game with it, and we took some delight in finding a different way for it to go wrong each round.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I was ambling out of D&D about the time AD&D came along, and nothing made me think I'd like it noticeably better than OD&D, which I'd come to dislike. To the degree I have any interest in the D&D sphere, there's still nothing to tell me that's a version I'd have any interest in engaging with.

Edit: Just realized this is another massive necro, isn't it?