I met Gary Gygax in the mid 00’s at a local gaming convention. He was very generous with his time and was nice enough to sign all my 1st edition original artwork books and modules with his name as the author. They were all over 20 yrs old by then and well worn. He liked how much use they had gotten.
Thank You for making this. I just watched your history of Original DnD and now the ADnD video. It's no wonder it took so long to make as there mist have been so much referencing and reading involved. Can't wait for the History of ADnD 2e when you're done making it!
I love these videos! Keep them coming, and I love to see something specific on the evolution of D&D dice for the game if you can. They answer so many questions that I had about this game and company when I was a kid. It stimulated my mind so much on how these combat systems worked that I was inspired to create my own RPG centered around the transformers and... ahem... the Gobots. Of course I never had it published. But because of this I always wanted to meet Gary Gygax. Many years later, I was a instructor at a martial arts school and one of my soon-to-be black belts told me he was a massive D&D geek as a kid. He was now a Johns Hopkins genetics professor, but I told him I also was as well. He want to step further and said he still was and a few years prior told me that he drove up to New York where Gygax lived just to meet him and told me how gracious he was and invited him to his regularly scheduled Thursdays gaming nite. I've never been more jealous of another man in my life, lol! Wow Stallone and Schwarzenegger or movie heroes of mine back then, so were the likes of Gygax and Tolkien.
Just wanted to mention if anyone is interested in a closer look at the controversy surrounding Deities and Demigods, Seth Skorkowsky made a video covering it and even has an appearance from Sandy Peterson who goes over the details of the issue.
I feel you should make a video RE: the advancements in playability that came with the Hickman's Desert of Desolation series of modules. The standardized format really made the game more playable.
ah in the 80´s i´d been the most dangerous kids in school. I love DnD, heavy metal, Dinosaurs, i draw monsters and i wear band shirts. Now i am just a 34 year old nerd
Can’t wait for the Pool of Radiance episode. Playing it for probably the 30th time. If possible, include the cheating done by removing a character with good items, adding back into party, and transferring items, dropping them, and adding them back in off the saved disk. Also try to explain how the manual of health works as well and constitution bug. The one I’m playing right now is a legit game, but I’ve run across several bugs on the Apple II version played on a IIGS - sometimes an odd magical item will appear with a goofy name. Last few could sell for 10-25K. One was a wand of Fireball with 2 charges. Some of the others were labeled +2 Arrows (not arrows +2) but overloaded an unencumbered character using the gauntlets from Cadornas treasure. Very odd. Another character had 254 HP, but it disappeared after I saved the game unfortunately. Would have loved to leveled up to see what happened there.
@@BockwinkleB Don’t even touch that blasphemous version. If you uninstall it, it can delete system files. This is the 1988 version. Terrific story, lots of fun, but unfortunately some limitations. Much of those were fixed in the sequel Curse I’d the Azure Bonds - an even more wild ride. EDIT - By 90’s version, I’m assuming Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor which came out in 2001 and had a collectors edition with Dice bag. I’m not familiar with any releases or compilations which may have include dice for the original gold box games and have a collection of all of them for the Apple II and PC. The could always be that one off release print I’m not aware of that was repackaged with dice.
Found your stuff recently through your vecna video I was wondering if you plan on doing anything on the dungeons & dragons cartoon or the old comics because I don't think anyone's ever really looked into those
My friend Gus was our DM, and his Dad was super religious. His DM's guide had knife marks on it from where his Dad had stabbed the devil like figure on the cover.
19:22, so I knew early GW was involved heavily in D&D and RPGs in general (indeed early 1st edition 40k was a RPG/wargame hyrid) but I never new that TSR actual took their articles as the basis for an official suplement. Kind of ironic how wargames created RPGs whose massive popularity ended up reinventing and repopularising wargames again. The influence between fantasy fiction, D&D, GW and videogames are all kind of obvious on a surface level, but the number of real direct connections between the main players is mindblowing.
So are they saying that my old tactic of casting transmute rock to mud on the ground beneath a sleeping dragon, and then immediately casting transmute mud to rock after the dragon has sunk in a few feet, all to have the party unload everythng they have on the dragon while it focuses on breaking itself free from the rock instead of focusing on killing us all is a "Cheese Strategy"?
Finally, a D&D video that isn't purely pandering to posers that don't actually play. I can only imagine real fans wanting to know this information. Kudos to all of you here.
I remember the “Satanic Panic” quite well. I was 11 and my mom took our books away. Sadly, we never saw them again. My friends dad played D&D and being good kids we walked right on over there and played. Fast forward a ton of years, and my mom introduced me to WoW. I looked at her and said “Better turn that s$&@ off or the Devil will get ya”. 😀 I have now been running campaigns for my kids and I think this summer I’ll get more family over.
you have a greater patience with your mother than I could have, trying to kill your hobby as a child while years later indulging in something that was functionally identical years later. Appreciate this must have been decades later and a lot must have changed so I really hope she apologised to you and hope that knows what she did, thats all I'll say
She does feel bad now, and kicks herself from time to time. I run my quest ideas by her and she will tell me if it makes sense or not. She has even had me change an idea for a side quest so much that it wasn’t close to the same, but it worked in the overall scheme of things. She still won’t play the game but she does have her own mini just incase :) However, I did remind her that helping tweak the quest is playing the game.
I was lucky in that my parents didn't know what to make of it, so they watched us play AD&D when we were 11 and 12 and came to the conclusion that it was just harmless fun. My father actually commented that the only 'danger' is that we would pick up some probability theory. Dad was a professor of probability theory and at the time (early 1980's) was chairman of the Michigan State University department of Statistics and Probability.
My grandmother asked me about it when she saw the book covers. My parents trusted me and I was a geek so they figured I was harmless and would make smart choices.
I played during the demon craze time. Back then D&D wasn't cool, if you told non D&Ders, they would laugh even mock you. But for those that understood what it was, we had some of the best times in my life. I still get chills thinking about those adventures. Thank you D&D, I owe you much.
in 6th grade our dnd sessions got cancelled due to columbine. I was soo pissed. I would get in trouble and refuse to do my work saying that the columbine shooters used pencil in school, so if i can't play dnd, I can't use the pencil. I was young, I didn't win lol.
My 1st wife never understood the game but she tolerated my obsession during the demonizing wars. Ilost all my rule books & over 4 dozen modules when we got divorced. But my love has lasted30 years to include combat in Iraq followed by playing during prison ! Great marathon sessions lasting 8- 15 hour sessions in the barracks as we gorged on pizza cuz they delivered 24/7 .
I've played D&D since the winter of 1975/76. I can remember when AD&D came out, there was a lot of reluctance from some people to transition from D&D to AD&D. Partly it was based upon the books not all coming out at the same time...as mentioned in this video. Others just saw AD&D as over complicating what they viewed as nothing more than a way to kill a few hours here and there. I also remember the controversy surrounding D&D and devil worship. I found out several years after the fact that some of the kids in our school thought we were Satan worshipers because we were always talking about throwing fireballs, and killing dragons. It's laughable to think back on that.
We had a dwarf in the party in the old days who was dead set on using every ability to it's fullest. I'll never forget his constant inquiries about the dungeon... _"Is this passage... sloping??"_
@@watchmanschannelofdespair I mean, if you had to give up various things, like access to higher levels in certain classes, due to a "non-human PC tax", you're going to want to wring as much value from that choice as possible. They ARE going to make the ability to detect slopes work for them, dammit!
Given how some trick orinented DMs could use such things to get you lost and on a much harder level than you'd like to be at, I can understand the paranoia.
And suddenly, I am 12 years old again. Seeing the cover art of the PHB teleports me back in time to sitting with neighborhood friends huddled over a kitchen table littered with graph paper and dice. Garret and Brian's mom bringing us sun tea that has been brewing out on the pack porch, fueling the uncountable hours playing over summer vacation. Many a sister's jewelry boxes were 'borrowed' to house our prized lead figurines. Thanks for bringing back those memories.
Holy cow, hearing the part about followers being an assumed transition into wargaming was like finding a missing puzzle piece. I've never understood how those rules were meant to be used but now they make total sense!
th-cam.com/video/d3Vm7Hzp4e4/w-d-xo.html Questing Beast as well goes into a very overlooked feature found in old DnD campaigns that I think liven up worlds immensely
I think it's mentioned in another video but old D&D also had rules for controlling entire armies in pitched battles lead by your high level characters. Another part of its wargaming lineage.
As an AD&D DM in the 80s, the players in my campaigns would travel with their entourages, who would be charged with scouting, guarding the camp, etc. A few might flesh out the dungeon party as NPCs run by the players. Those NPCs could also gain levels, but many did not survive. Monster fodder, don't you know? 👿
@@shep1807 Sometimes we would take henchmen on adventures to carry loot and fill support roles. But it could be a huge pain to administrate all the NPCs.
Still have all my AD&D books and adventures. Massive part of my life from ages 12-18. Now almost 30 years later I'm thinking of starting a new campaign!
My mother recently passed away. Upon cleaning out her house, I found she kept all my AD&D stuff packed and put away (1st edition and also a couple of 2nd addition). Now, I too I am reading through the books and thinking whether it would still be fun to do again at 58 years old!
Got all mine as well including my copy Deities and Demigods that had the Lankhmar pantheon and such that had to be removed in Legends and Lore due to copyright. Gotta say, I'm actually impressed with how well they've held up over the years. Obviously they're not in mint condition but none of the pages are falling out and the bindings are surprisingly intact.
Sounds good. Never give up! My group has been together since 1995. Every Sunday from 7-10 pm. I must be doing something right. (Except for the 2009 to 2011 rules incident that is.)
Same here, have just about everything avalable for 2nd edition and not gonna give Hasbro a dime more past the 100.00 or so I spent on the 3 core books from 3rd edition
Sweden had it's own roleplaying boom in the 80's with similarly confusing and complicated rules and the same type of art. I can still remember the smell of old books in my friends apartment as we played after school, and the adventures we had. It's been almost 30 years now. Where did the time go?
Haha, I used to buy books and dice from a store (mostly books) from one called "The Lion And The Dragon" I know that smell. I like GURPS, it's simple. As a GM I've never used a "screen" like I did as a DM. My players have written novels with me. A journey, a story. Purpose was to challenge.
Same in Germany. Our local games outsold D&D over here until the 2000’s when the OGL boom steam rolled the industry. Impressive what Sweden, ehh Free League did in the last 10 years putting Sweden on the map inna similar way how the Göteborg bands did for Heavy Metal.
Excellent synopsis of TSR’s business history. We used to run campaigns at a local gaming store (now defunct Aero Hobbies which had been located within the City of Santa Monica, California). The original owner of Aero Hobbies (Gary Switzer, Requiescet in pace) was the creator of D&D’s “Thief/rogue” class and offered his class creation to E. Gary Gygax who accepted it and incorporated it within the D&D/AD&D rule sets.
The in depth look at the business of AD&D, failings even. Alarmingly, it is incredibly exactly what Games Workshop has transitioned into with no care for the fans/customers of their products.
I found my dad’s old Players Handbook and Monsters Manual when I was a kid and that’s how I learned about DnD. I didn’t understand it but I loved just flipping through the monster manual. I played 5e in high school and now am in love with OSRs and am making my own rule system. I still like to flip through the ADND stuff sometimes.
I started playing AD&D in 79/80. My DMs first adventure was the Tomb of Horrors for my 1st level Dwarven fighter, Thorin Oakenshield, big Tolkien fan. I entered the tomb walked down the tunnel and promptly fell into a spike filled pit and got killed straight off. I didn't quit playing, but it turned out if your character lived past his killer DM phase, it went to Monty Hall. And I remember all the bs religious crap. If you're out there what's up Woody?
Deities and Demigods was my favorite addition. Gave me years of reading and learning about mythology and various cultures. I learned so much BECAUSE of that book.
I remember back in the early/mid 80s as an inquisitive 11-12 year old , I was introduced to AD&D from my friend's older brother (who was 15-16 years old). Played it all summer and had an absolute blast! Good times.
Had been playing AD&D at the same time. But this little company, GDW came out with Twilight 2000, played it until we graduated high school and went down our own paths.
I didn't start with D&D but "Basic Roleplaying" back in late 1984 and got in to AD&D a couple of years after that. I kinda miss AD&D though, while the balancing was wonky and the rulebooks were a bit unclear I could always feel the passion of the creators. Modern D&D (particularly 4th edition) have felt more like a product then a work of passion and I enjoyed the named classes and things like your high level thief creating his or her own thieves guild. I have been working on a new AD&D campaign to introduce the game to some younger friends who missed the entire classic AD&D era of the 80s but Covid put the entire thing on ice. I still plan to start this autumn, going full out with minis, 3D dungeons and tons of visual aides to make the game world feel a bit more magical for them. Roleplaying in the 80s were a bit different today. Luckily my parents weren't stupid enough to fall for the "Satanist recruitment" media hype, having the kids at their place or one of their friends during the weekend playing game sounded like we would get into less trouble then if we were running around town and they had a point.
That was a very interesting video. The part that stood out to be was the idea that Gygax wrote rules with the expectation they may not be used at the GM's discretion. It makes a lot of the modules Ive read from the era make a lot more sense if the assumption is that the GM will constantly be modifying things as needed for that group in that session, those modules by default often seem to have too many details in one area that from this lens could be read as a list of options for the GM to use rather than a list of everything that has to happen. I also quite enjoy learning that little factoid about Gygax because its how I run all my games, a rule is only relevant if I decide its interesting as a GM or if the player has evoked it in some way. For example, the specific long jump rules would only come into my game if a player starts taking long jump feats to affect how those rules work otherwise I just make a guess at a DC and get them to roll.
Back when I played the most in the early 1980s, there were essentially two kinds of DMs -- those who saw the rules as cast in stone, and those who saw them "merely as guidelines". I always preferred the latter.
@@yes_head There was another axiom, the typical "If the rules don't say you can, you can't." and the "If the rules don't say you can't, you can." I have always been in the 2nd category because only a Killer DM would make the game more restrictive just to make it more restrictive. the 3rd axiom was the "I'm the DM and it is my job to kill the characters" and "I';m the DM and it's my job to referee, so lets have fun." DMs.
@@kevinsullivan3448 I, funnily, hate the 2nd kind of GM, but also am him. Though, that's why when I am called upon to fill in to run, I almost always run PARANOIA or Twilight:2000. You can't say you didn't know what you were in for. At that point, not being utterly merciless to your players and turning every little thing into an uphill slog is doing it wrong.
This was a nice trip down memory lane for me. I started playing AD&D in 1981 while I was in high school. I played throughout college and post college up until D&D fourth edition. I now play Pathfinder, but I'll never forget those days playing with the guys, fussing over rules and going through home spun and published modules. Good times.
Typical. A few creative types create something good and popular, it gets profitable, and attracts soulless money hunters and posers. The creative types leave and what made the product popular is lost.
One thing often skipped over was the contradiction of "Dual Class" and Bards. This was one of many in the original AD&D rules. The book specifically said only humans could be dual class. Yet, half-elves could become Bards. But to be a Bard, you had to be dual class. A lot of us just accepted that both humans and half-elves could be dual class to get around that. Kind of like a similar one, where it stated "All dwarves have beards". All dwarves, even the females? Want to get a fight going in a D&D group in the early 1980s, say your female dwarf fighter has a beard.
It should be noted that AD&D was born out of tournament play, not just transferring characters between campaigns. During tournaments, DM’s were handling the modules very differently and this was to get everyone on the same page. That’s why there are so many damn tables for every little thing.
That's a popular misconception. The reason there were tables for every little thing is because it was a proper attempt to codify the gameplay experience of early D&D campaigns in a way their first try (OD&D) couldn't. That's why, when you play OD&D and its supplements by the book, you're basically playing an early version of AD&D.
To a certain extent. There was also the fact that the structure of D&D play outside tournaments was considerably more communal. Players in the dozens would get together in shared campaigns, tackling dungeons in a sandbox. Obviously this couldn't be accomplished all together, with everyone at the table at once. So players would get together in small groups, either with a shared DM or with whomever could DM at the time. (This would also explain the phenomenon of DMs having "Their Dungeon", something they would work on and refine over time. If it's a shared sandbox, each DM might be in charge of certain dungeons and how they develop.). With players moving around and even crossing between gaming tables, in a shared milieu, it's important that one's character be "portable". To be able to point to an objective set of rules and justify why they were allowed to have what they did. No DM wants to deal with a broken magic item or overpowered PC build a player brings before them, because their normal DM let them have it.
@@Bluecho4 I’m just saying the primary reason or maybe the spark was tournament play, portability was the huge benefit. Even in AD&D we ran into issues with OP players either by a Santa DM, blind luck on rolls, or unintended consequences - I’ve been part of all 3. Santa DM because we were 9 years old and learning, unintended consequences as a bard of mine sucked in combat, I mean really bad that we created a boxing non-weapon proficiency so he could fight without a weapon because he dropped them so frequently. This was good as he got 4 attacks of 1-2 ho damage if he hit, until we randomly rolled a Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength, whoops. Finally the random rolls, our current party has a 5th level mage with a ridiculous 29 hp, but the 5thr level fighters have a 20 and 18, with the clerics at 12 and 19. On the other hand the treasure rolls have been sick with intelligent swords and armor in the +2 and +3 variety which they shouldn’t have until they get to levels 8-15. They’ve primarily been surviving by purchasing healing potions by the crate with the ridiculous treasure as trade.
Back in the Dark Ages of the 1970's when playing D&D we would allow a certain total number of character points you could use in any stats. It worked great. The more points you put into a stat the less you had for other stats, so it self-regulated itself fairly.
Boy this brings back memories. I played AD&D starting in 1984 when I was 13 years old. I would go over to my best friend Andrew Robertson’s house and we would play for hours. Then we would go to the Prado River Reserve with our machetes and axes and we would go fight Orcs. Well, actually they were just tree saplings that we would chop down with our machetes. Every time I see the cover of the AD&D books it brings back such memories. We played for two years but it seems like it was a lot longer. I haven’t played in almost 40 years. Nothing can replace the 80’s. It was the best time to live in the United States.
@@speedymolasses3062 there’s a heck of a lot more racism across the UStoday than there was then. It’s much more systemic now than it was before. Everything is all race baiting now , we have much more division. The 80s were way better than the current sorry state of this once great country.
@@speedymolasses3062 I am a minority. My mother grew up extremely poor. I didn’t let excuses get in the way of hard work and a job with the ability to make 400K a year plus 457 and lifetime medical. Don’t buy into the hype my friend
Wow thank you for this Video. I played AD&D in Middle School circa 1982 and we were oblivious to all the major moves and shakes within the industry. As a old man now its is great to understand what happened and gives great meaning to my collection.
Gary Gygax and JRR Tolkien, the two men that changed my life! Tomb of Horrors, Keep on the Borderlands, Vault of the Drow, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Best times of my youth. I still have the character sheet to my Paladin, Prince Matron!
@@FrancardNoir I felt that the description of "Force Field Protection" for Prismatic Sphere was very vague. I emailed Gygax over it and and clarified with a response.
I and my brother have been playing for 45 years, we stopped at 2ed " great edition" because the newer stuff out is not true D&D, only in name, and we have a very huge library of all the books and supplements, and thousands of minis and terrain, what a truly great game it is. :)
I played the crap out if 2end edition . And many things were smarter on it like if you have multiple attacks you don't just use them all at once just because you won initive . We tried 4th and hated 5th is OK. But me and my friends prefer 3.5 the most. We like the feats they like the multi classing and everyone likes the skills
I have no problem with the 3rd edition. ( I still pick up stuff when it's affordable and 2nd hand. The new 5th edition is also pretty good) but 4th is crap.
I started with the basic blue box but quickly transitioned to 2nd; wasn't a big fan of 3rd myself but to be honest haven't really looked at the last iterations. But as I already have almost everything that was published for 2nd I'm sticking to it. My oldest and her bf have been asking about the game lately...
@@faselessnobuddy the only system that was a total failure ?(in my opinion) was 4th edition. That is the only edition not collectable to me. I never thought 5th would make it as far as its come, and thought, Everything's Pathfinder now....how can a new version of D&D compete? Man was I wrong.
Its funny how the guys who got their start sending in articles to Dragon turned around and became the gatekeepers of RPG publishing and do everything in their power to make sure nobody else makes the same jump from fan to designer.
That is hardly something new. Disney made a killing turning public domain stories into movies but have since spent a lot of time and money to stop their own creations becoming public domain.
System Shock was part of Supplement I: Greyhawk (OD&D 1975), as was Dual Classing (but it wasn't called that). When you take OD&D (1974), plus Greyhawk (1975), Blackmoor (Monks & Assassins) (1976), Eldritch Wizardry (Druids and combat Segments) (1976), and the Strategic Review magazine (Rangers, Illusionists, Bards, and the 5-point alignment (1975-76), you basically get proto-AD&D. It ran a lot like B/X with Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy rules.
th-cam.com/play/PLlUk42GiU2gtSENFDN3Rm2oLJLkUsaJ_A.html Different channel, and chances are you know of this one but this is sort of what you are asking for so. . .
The good ole 'The keep on the borderlands" module started me off. What a recall in memory. I still have all my materials. But never played the newer versions of AD&D. In fact, our Friday sessions at Wargames West in Albuquerque, NM devolved into gossip and just playing video games instead of playing the DnD session in the early 80s.
"But the departure of Gary Gygax spiritually marks the end of an era." Can't agree more. Never truly get into the newer D&D editions, I played all for like 1/2 years but the burnout is inevitable. The "old-school" feeling, the identity, the "soul" just isn't there and even with thousands of homebrew material, those editions just can't emulate the Gygax D&D. Even if now D&D it's more popular than ever I think it's a byproduct from the exposure, the internet and movies/series, not because the "D&D". More people want to play cuz they see Critical Role or other RPG shows or watch Stranger Things and search about the "game the characters are playing" but they most of them don't like the game for what it is but like the activity... Back then I loved AD&D and AD&D 2e and still love today. Was my first system, played for almost 10 years with the same group and we grow together as friends. When the time comes and we grow up "too much" the adult life kicked in and we lose contact. I started DMing for groups and never got the same feeling if we play 3e or 4e. 5e started strong, we had hope, but then evil races from Forgotten Realms start to not be evil, all the material is just for the Sword Coast, WotC literally forgot the rest of Toril, and most of the new players think they are chosen heroes saving the world. Nothing wrong with playing like this but this just makes things boring and easy, not memorable... Sorry for the rant, love the channel btw.
Well, Forgotten Realms evil races not being evil is pretty original. I mean Eilistraee and Peaceful Orc being original…for some reason; WoTC seems to dislike Eilistraee and mostly had to do with RA Salvatore, who said that he dislike her. Even not evil Drows seem to ignore Eilistraee.
But the activity is the game? I think D&D becoming more widely known is a good thing because it becomes open to a lot of players who may have seen it as a weird niche
I still think Gygax was right. He was explaining a concept and giving help. The important thing is to create fantasy and fun and a "realistic" campaign and not to get caught up in tables, rules and charts which gets tedious and boring.
When I played AD&D and the DM told us we needed to find trainers to level up, we went on a long, dangerous and almost impossible quest which took a year’s worth of play sessions, to find a dimensional portal to the real planet Earth in modern times, so we could buy trainers at a shoe store. Only then did we discover that the DM meant the other definition of the word “trainers”.
I never found a group for AD&D, and Mom was against it due to suicide/demons rumor. I was going to comment on the wisdom of having demonic characters and altars on the cover of rulebooks, but apparently it didn't hurt sales. In college I was invited me to join their GURPS group, but the adventures weren't great for the time spent. I liked TSR's Dragon Strike, but played more hours of GW's Warhammer Quest, although it too has problems as you level up. I currently don't have a group but have played Castle Ravenloft and Descent one-on-one.
As and "old guy" who first played D&D Basic Edition with some of my middle school friends, I really enjoyed this video. We quickly transitioned to the newly published AD&D manuals - I can recall checking Sears and a local bookstore every week until the PHB and DMG were released! Now, I play and DM in two AD&D campaigns on Roll20 with a group of other old schoolers who found their people once again... there ain't nothing like fantasy RPG adventuring!!!
My dad thought D&D was a cult recruiting system and forbid me to play it. I had to hide my books or give them to my friends I played with til dad came to reason. 17:10
There were two approaches to playing D&D in California in the mid-80’s. There were the Dragon Dice heads, who insisted on rolling and crafting new matrixes if a player wanted to order a pizza or go to the bathroom. And there were the storytellers. We were the avid readers of the Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Chronicle of Pyrdian & Dragon Quest books who used our skills to draw multiple page maps that took D&D to a new, vibrant level of choose your own adventure seasoned with the golden age of radio “theater of the mind.” You can infer from which category I hailed. For some of us once you DM’d there was no going back. Ironically my original team all met attending Fremont Christian School. As a 50 year old Christian I can now see the church’s concern back then but playing was so immersive and so much fun and frankly the church offered nothing that could even come close by comparison. Satan (as in Beelzebub, the real devil) hides in EVERYTHING. From Harry Potter to porn. Workaholism to religious zealotry. But the Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob is who gave me the hyper creativity that writing D&D modules as an adolescent nurtured. What other game can profess to churning out hundreds of dedicated 12 year old writers who hunched over pen & graph paper pages instead of out riding BMX bikes? We learned to paint our little pewter figurines while our friends were shooting windows with BB guns. I basically ignored fifth & sixth grade in favor of writing my own modules. One trip through the Keep on the Borderlands and within months I was buying hexagonal graph paper & creating new worlds outside the dungeon environment. My games were THE BEST in Fremont, CA circa 1984-86. But then my kid brother let some overzealous youth ministers talk him into burning all of my D&D stuff. Every map. Every module. Every game board. Even my pewter characters. Hundreds of dollars in mowed lawns and washed cars and hundreds of hours learning to write… poof💥🔥 Gone. Now, today I’m a dedicated Christian and he’s a dedication Portland leftist. Go figure. Aside from hundreds of quarters lost playing Dragons Lair at the local cineplex it was all harmless. What the church should’ve been worrying about was what happened two years later when D&D pizza parties turned into “parents are away/beer bashes and toking Mexican weed” parties. That’s when the devil really came to town.
Amen brother. I too, am a Christian. Sorry to read your books and work burned up. Hope you're able to find a local or on-line group to play. There are many like-minded Christian role-playing groups out there. Worldwide. Blessings.
I have great memories of AD&D back in the mid 80s. Only problem I had with it was I seemed to always have to be the dungeon master as I was pretty good at coming up with the scenarios and the dungeons and so on. Telling the story etc. I wanted to play! But anyway, I really wish I had all of those great D&D reference books like the one in the thumbnail for this video and more I had. Man, I would spend hours just looking through all those monsters , all their stats and reading their stories. I was enthralled.
Excellent video that brought back so many nostalgic memories. I could comment on so much covered here, but I'll start with Dieties and Demigods. I first saw the original "Deities & Demigods" from a junior high friend who owned a ragtag copy of it. It was a HUGE disappointment that MY copy was missing two mythos. A decade later I found the 1st Edition at a used bookstore, but by the early 1990s, my hobby interests had shifted, and I never play tested the deities from the Cthulhu and Melniborean Mythos. To tell these apart, the first edition "Deities & Demigods" has the "wizard" TRS logo with sans-serif font on the lower right of the front cover. The reprint has the "face" logo with script font. Mythos are alphabetical and listed on Page 3. Also the original edition has 144 pages and the later release is 128 pages.
I was a rules lawyer: I read from cover to cover the 2nd Edition AD&D Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Compendium, plus some supplemental guides like the Book of Elves. Such a waste of time. nobody ever follows the rules.
Thank you for this great video. I started playing (and kept playing) AD&D in the early & mid 1980s in Jr. High, in the small bible-belt town of Harrison, Arkansas that seriously put the "bible" in "bible belt", and I have horrible memories of being persecuted for it. Getting caught in school with D&D material during that "satanic panic" era was enough to get you repeatedly beaten & assaulted. School officials turned a blind eye to this too, tacitly encouraging the "weird kids getting beaten up" and concluded that I somehow deserved it. The way Gary got stabbed in the back as he did appalls me to this day. Also, William Dear is/was an absolute putz. Him posing with his absurd little James Bond pistol with his finger carelessly on the trigger will make any actual firearms instructor cringe and want to slap him. Did he need his gun to find a missing, emotionally distraught teenager?? What were we expected to think he was somehow protecting us from with it? More satanic D&D playing teens? He was a grand-standing glory hound and a media shill. Screw that guy.
Dear was never anti-D&D. He - and the police - just needed to distract attention away from the real reasons for James Dallas Egbert’s disappearance. Any harm he did to the hobby was unintentional and done with James Dallas Egbert’s interests in mind. Of course, the most detailed account we have is his and he undoubtedly painted himself in the best light, but I reckon those things are true. He never showed any later hostility towards D&D and did genuinely seem to care about James’ welfare.
@@drzander3378 I think that is Edgar's point, Dear used the then-latent panic that had been fomenting to his advantage and ended up screwing a generation of teens and young adults in the process. He never really had any real care or sensitivity about J.D.E. and that couldn't be clearer from his book, only for his absurd profile
It's still weird to me that people consider 'illusionist' a class in AD&D when it was just one example of the Wizard Specialist, which was the standard wizard next to the generalist Mage.
D&D was a lot of fun through the early 1990's. When I took it up again in the early '00's, it felt like needing a lawyer and an accountant just to play. It also didn't help that I was playing under rules where any magic items available to you had barely anything to do with the actual module you were playing and they had to be bought using a meager amount of gold that was given as a flat payment for surviving and successfully completing the module. You'd have to play a TON of module just to afford something like the tooth-pick of extra minty cleaning or something lame like that. So I stopped playing altogether. Plus, the Wizards were pumping out new editions of rule books like they were college math books.
I started playing AD&D from the beginning when I was 11 years old and have been playing it since. And to this day I still run a group of players using AD&D and use the world of greyhawk as our setting
The other thing that always gets missed is before the "Satanic Panic" controversy, parents (at least in the midwest) were suspicious of the game because there were no winners or losers. That just did not compute to them that you could have a game and not have someone win. Smacked of communism. Since they were already distrustful, it was easier to accept the game was more nefarious still.
I never heard of communism angle, and thst angle makes you smack of communist superstition revising history because you believe capitalism has winners and losers, whichmis a communist perspective of capitalism, not a capitalistic perspective of capitalism. Are you sure you are telling it truly? Satanic panic in the 80s was common for many movie themes, accussations against nursuries, possibly certain doom cults like the Manson family. But saying communism because no winners and losers...I may have heard of thst being strange, but the idea of winners and losers is a capitalist thing is a communist propaganda against capitalism...obviously. capitalists dont believe capitalism makes winnners and losers.
@@mitchellslate1249 I'd say winners and losers is pretty much exactly what capitalism is about. If someone is making a profit, then somewhere along the line, someone is making a loss. Things don't magic out of nowhere; even if a lot of that is human labour and ingenuity. Which is not to say that there isn't also some mutual benefit in capitalism. However someone will come off better because someone else is prepared to work for or supply them somewhere along the chain for less.
At 25:29 I realized I had bought everything shown, from the box set to the 2 Gods books. At the end yep every D&D/AD&D book sold. Even the World of Grey Hawk world map. A few years worth of Dragon mags... damn I'm a nerd!
As a kid, I would read a ton of books. These books were generally fantasy. I read a lot of Forgotten Realms books. I did not play D&D, for reference. Eventually, my parents decided that just having a kid who actually reads isn't good enough, that kid needs to read some non-fiction books. So, they made me get a non-fiction book on each visit to the library. One of those books, that I either got, or at least perused when considering what book to get, was one of these propaganda books that claimed D&D was satanic. I don't remember much about it, but I do remember finding it absolutely hilarious.
I started with a basic D&D set found in a neighbor's house during a grown-ups xmas party, arnd 1980. V cool & became one of the AD&D kids in high school in early 80s. I had all the books (up to F Folio 2), but missed all those appendix rules you've mentioned. For myself, I was always most inspired by the cover art; apparently they weren't just random illustrations, they actually had refs to the content - was seriously engrossed, & marked all my game play... P.S. growing up in Perth, W Australia, we missed all that 'satanic-panic' stuff, thank God!
(Born in 1979) My friends and I played AD&D in high school. We were in a Star Trek club and the club president ran a D&D game that he had been running for nearly twenty years. It was a huge pain in the ass to play as a lvl 1 character in a 50 character epic. He refused to power level us. A few years later in college, I met my best friend and we started playing 3rd edition in 2000. Though we’re on 5th edition now and have changed characters a number of times, we are STILL playing the exact same FR campaign setting that we started 22 years ago! My 11yo daughter has even started to play with us off an on. It is crazy how much staying power TTRPGs can have. Thanks for the video!
Roled my first character on the playground in 5th grade in 1979. Except for "Rolemaster" (aka MERP), and Paranoia, I gave up on most RPGs after Gygax left TSR. I found most of the changes made to AD&D and to newer RPGs were like JRPGs compared to Ultima. In other words, pretty maybe, but mostly pretty lacking, or made for simple minds.
There is also Super-Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. You only could play an ORC and you had to HATE ALL humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and well, anyone who didn't bow before your Orcish might, so Goblins are Kool, but only if they recognize your Orc Swagger and Orc Mojo. Otherwise, you had Orc Rage and could unleash it on any fools stupid enough to cross you. Some called it Orc-O-Centric, but it was simply reflecting the reality that being an Orc was Awesome and players, most of them at least, found it superior to playing lesser creatures. The game nick named Orc Dungeons and Dragons, and the only way you got to play it was through invitation only. If you didn't know someone then you could not join the special elite club of Orc players. At some point one of the Orc players fell in love with a non-Orc and the Half Orc was made, and this got later inserted into Advanced Dugneons and Dragons so lesser non-superior characters and their equally less Kool players could experience the Ultra Koolness and Singularity Power of being one of the Chosen, one of the Orcs, at least Half of an Orc. So you shall find the Half Orc as a character option in the ADnD, but those who played Super-Advanced Dungeons and Dragons know that there was a superior game to both Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Only now, has permission been given by the Orc Gods to reveal this lore to the general public. Orc players, the original ones, all got special Orc Clan tattoos so the next time you meet an Old School Gamer from way back in the day. Maybe try and look to see if they have one of those Tattoos. Orc's had 10-sided Hit Dice, and Maximum Number 13, the Holy Special Magic Number of the Orc Gods. Additional points per level Thereafter was +3, maximum level 20th. The Orc could acquire a holy weapon of Ultimate Rage, which allowed special powers against Humans, Elves and other Demi-Humans. It allowed the Orc to Radiate Fear and against other Orcs and Goblinoids, Respect in the form of Mojo and Swagger. The Orc could impose and project the Mojo, and Swagger so that other Orc's knew that the Orc with the Ultimate Rage was Way Kooler than they were so they should Know their Place and Shut their Damn Fool Mouth, unless given permission to speak by their superior Orc Brother or Sister.
AD&D, in my opinion, was the best version. You pointed out why at roughly 33:00. Everything after Monster Manual 2 kind of started turning the game less into a game-flow, and more into a bunch of lawyers arguing over precedent. Oriental Adventures, Unearthed Arcana, Manual of the Planes, Spelljammer, those all kind of lost a magic that Gary had imbued the others with. THACO sucked, The original modules, like the Giants series, Q1, the Ravenloft series, , and of course, the S series (arguably my favorite) were all inspiration for home brews. I love the fact that with the core three AD&D books ( though I do love me some deities and some fiends), a pad of graph paper, pencil and dice, you never really needed to buy anything else, just exercise a bit of creativity, So much fun!
I started playing in Jr. high, with the original AD&D. We modded THE CRAP out of those rules, and we completely rebuilt the magic system to something that looks a lot more like the magic in Oblivion or Skyrim than that dumb memorize the spell, forget it after you cast it and memorize it again. That was just DUMB.
Lorraine Williams had some... Opinions on the gaming hobby. She absolutely hated Dungeons & Dragons and anyone associated with it, seeing it as a game of devil worship, and all the players pagan. She refused to let people playtest anything written, claiming it was "playing games on company time," so nothing in second edition was properly balanced. Oh, and she purposefully made 2nd edition as a way to screw Gygax out of royalties. When Magic: the Gathering came out, she pushed through TSR's own card game, which crashed and burned hard, and the entire time she was trying to push buck rogers products, since it meant she would get money from her properties. And in the end, when she was done with the burned remains of the company, she sold the entire thing to Wizards of the Coast.
Runequest was so much better. :) Coherent, understandable, consistent, easily playable, fewer gimmicks and *slightly* less concerned with selling you the Next Book Published
Is there any chance this series gains retrospectives on the history of the game going forward into 2e, 3, 3.5 Pathfinder vs 4e and then 5es beginnings? I'd imagine people would be interested in learning about the entire story
Nice history lesson. It's fun to learn about the history of older editions. Not interested in playing them though, but I like seeing the origins for a lot of things. I don't like a lot of the older mechanics, but I regularly take lore and monsters from older editions as DnD has so many cool creatures that didn't make it into 5e, (like yellow, grey, pink, or steel dragons).
I remember when I was 10 I wanted this game so bad. My parents was informed from church that this is satanist tool to recruit new worshipers. This stunted my growth in this game.
I actually have always liked the looser rule set. To me, strict rules are kinda antithetical to fantasy. As a DM, I mishmash rules from all the various releases as I please. To me the concept is to have a fun story and adventure and not endlessly be hunting ing tables and esoteric rules.
Why is the new stuff considered bad by some? Elven paladins? I bought some of the 5th edition books out of curiosity. One thing I can say is it seems like a good idea to have very good armor classes. Before a -10 was about as good as it got. With this newer version, you could have a 45 or more(equivalent of a -25) I grew up on 2nd edition. I've never got to play 5th edition so I really don't know how it would go.
The 1st Edition DMG didn't just *clarify* rules in the 1st Edition PHB, it outright *replaced* some of them. For example, the rules for how many spells a 1st level magic-user character has in his/her spellbooks. The PHB gives a % chance to know each 1st level magic-user spell in the master list, and gives a max number of allowed spells, based on the magic-user's intelligence. The DMG, on the other hand, says that a 1st level magic-user always has exactly 4 spells in his/her spellbooks, one of which must be "read magic", and the other 3 of which are basically "one from column A, one from column B, and one from column C" -- and any further spells must be acquired by finding scrolls or spellbooks and copying them there with a "write" spell.
As a lazy dm, and one that felt that wizards were weak at the beginning of their careers, I'd let my wizard players allways get Read Magic, Detect Magic, and Magic Missile for free at start. Then let them pick 2d4 others. Just try not to get wrapped up in useless timekilling rules and keep that game flowing!
I played AD&D back in the late 70s. My grade 9 science teacher was our dungeon master at school twice a week. Then we bought the books and played at home. I still have all my original AD&D books and about 10 modules. :)
I met Gary Gygax in the mid 00’s at a local gaming convention. He was very generous with his time and was nice enough to sign all my 1st edition original artwork books and modules with his name as the author. They were all over 20 yrs old by then and well worn. He liked how much use they had gotten.
It's amazing how I can see one comment talk about how patient and nice Gygax was then another one say he was kind of stand offish and a bit of a dick.
@NerdHerdForLife, from what I understand, he may have been kinda both depending on the time.
Gary Gygax and I used to date. He would drown cats in a bucket full of hot sauce to achieve an erection. Very sweet man though.
@@cinderguard3156 Like everyone else.
Thank You for making this. I just watched your history of Original DnD and now the ADnD video. It's no wonder it took so long to make as there mist have been so much referencing and reading involved. Can't wait for the History of ADnD 2e when you're done making it!
I love these videos! Keep them coming, and I love to see something specific on the evolution of D&D dice for the game if you can. They answer so many questions that I had about this game and company when I was a kid. It stimulated my mind so much on how these combat systems worked that I was inspired to create my own RPG centered around the transformers and... ahem... the Gobots. Of course I never had it published. But because of this I always wanted to meet Gary Gygax. Many years later, I was a instructor at a martial arts school and one of my soon-to-be black belts told me he was a massive D&D geek as a kid. He was now a Johns Hopkins genetics professor, but I told him I also was as well. He want to step further and said he still was and a few years prior told me that he drove up to New York where Gygax lived just to meet him and told me how gracious he was and invited him to his regularly scheduled Thursdays gaming nite. I've never been more jealous of another man in my life, lol! Wow Stallone and Schwarzenegger or movie heroes of mine back then, so were the likes of Gygax and Tolkien.
Always uploading a video when I need one the most
Just wanted to mention if anyone is interested in a closer look at the controversy surrounding Deities and Demigods, Seth Skorkowsky made a video covering it and even has an appearance from Sandy Peterson who goes over the details of the issue.
I feel you should make a video RE: the advancements in playability that came with the Hickman's Desert of Desolation series of modules. The standardized format really made the game more playable.
ah in the 80´s i´d been the most dangerous kids in school. I love DnD, heavy metal, Dinosaurs, i draw monsters and i wear band shirts. Now i am just a 34 year old nerd
Can’t wait for the Pool of Radiance episode. Playing it for probably the 30th time. If possible, include the cheating done by removing a character with good items, adding back into party, and transferring items, dropping them, and adding them back in off the saved disk. Also try to explain how the manual of health works as well and constitution bug.
The one I’m playing right now is a legit game, but I’ve run across several bugs on the Apple II version played on a IIGS - sometimes an odd magical item will appear with a goofy name. Last few could sell for 10-25K. One was a wand of Fireball with 2 charges. Some of the others were labeled +2 Arrows (not arrows +2) but overloaded an unencumbered character using the gauntlets from Cadornas treasure. Very odd. Another character had 254 HP, but it disappeared after I saved the game unfortunately. Would have loved to leveled up to see what happened there.
Had the 90s Windows version, but never got into it. Still have the dice bag and dice that came with it though.
@@BockwinkleB Don’t even touch that blasphemous version. If you uninstall it, it can delete system files. This is the 1988 version. Terrific story, lots of fun, but unfortunately some limitations. Much of those were fixed in the sequel Curse I’d the Azure Bonds - an even more wild ride.
EDIT - By 90’s version, I’m assuming Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor which came out in 2001 and had a collectors edition with Dice bag. I’m not familiar with any releases or compilations which may have include dice for the original gold box games and have a collection of all of them for the Apple II and PC. The could always be that one off release print I’m not aware of that was repackaged with dice.
I used to call my friend Uncle Gary Gygax. He was not my uncle, or Gary Gygax, but it still seemed apt.
Found your stuff recently through your vecna video I was wondering if you plan on doing anything on the dungeons & dragons cartoon or the old comics because I don't think anyone's ever really looked into those
My friend Gus was our DM, and his Dad was super religious. His DM's guide had knife marks on it from where his Dad had stabbed the devil like figure on the cover.
19:22, so I knew early GW was involved heavily in D&D and RPGs in general (indeed early 1st edition 40k was a RPG/wargame hyrid) but I never new that TSR actual took their articles as the basis for an official suplement. Kind of ironic how wargames created RPGs whose massive popularity ended up reinventing and repopularising wargames again.
The influence between fantasy fiction, D&D, GW and videogames are all kind of obvious on a surface level, but the number of real direct connections between the main players is mindblowing.
Whatever happened to Basic (red book) and Expert (blue book)? That was the first D&D I played before AD&D.
So are they saying that my old tactic of casting transmute rock to mud on the ground beneath a sleeping dragon, and then immediately casting transmute mud to rock after the dragon has sunk in a few feet, all to have the party unload everythng they have on the dragon while it focuses on breaking itself free from the rock instead of focusing on killing us all is a "Cheese Strategy"?
Yes he made the players handbook and DMG kind of fun, just to read.
3:25 it’s funny that the same thing happened to Gygax when 2e came out
Finally, a D&D video that isn't purely pandering to posers that don't actually play. I can only imagine real fans wanting to know this information. Kudos to all of you here.
Im sorry youve had to witness people enjoying things
Awesome video! Thank you!!!
The saying is "bad publicity is better than no publicity."
My grandparents absolutely forbid me playing d&d...
I still have all of my original books, etc
I remember the “Satanic Panic” quite well. I was 11 and my mom took our books away. Sadly, we never saw them again.
My friends dad played D&D and being good kids we walked right on over there and played.
Fast forward a ton of years, and my mom introduced me to WoW. I looked at her and said “Better turn that s$&@ off or the Devil will get ya”. 😀
I have now been running campaigns for my kids and I think this summer I’ll get more family over.
you have a greater patience with your mother than I could have, trying to kill your hobby as a child while years later indulging in something that was functionally identical years later. Appreciate this must have been decades later and a lot must have changed so I really hope she apologised to you and hope that knows what she did, thats all I'll say
She does feel bad now, and kicks herself from time to time.
I run my quest ideas by her and she will tell me if it makes sense or not. She has even had me change an idea for a side quest so much that it wasn’t close to the same, but it worked in the overall scheme of things.
She still won’t play the game but she does have her own mini just incase :)
However, I did remind her that helping tweak the quest is playing the game.
@@boardrider71 That's really nice, and I'm glad for both of you
I was lucky in that my parents didn't know what to make of it, so they watched us play AD&D when we were 11 and 12 and came to the conclusion that it was just harmless fun. My father actually commented that the only 'danger' is that we would pick up some probability theory. Dad was a professor of probability theory and at the time (early 1980's) was chairman of the Michigan State University department of Statistics and Probability.
My grandmother asked me about it when she saw the book covers. My parents trusted me and I was a geek so they figured I was harmless and would make smart choices.
I played during the demon craze time. Back then D&D wasn't cool, if you told non D&Ders, they would laugh even mock you. But for those that understood what it was, we had some of the best times in my life. I still get chills thinking about those adventures. Thank you D&D, I owe you much.
in 6th grade our dnd sessions got cancelled due to columbine. I was soo pissed. I would get in trouble and refuse to do my work saying that the columbine shooters used pencil in school, so if i can't play dnd, I can't use the pencil. I was young, I didn't win lol.
My 1st wife never understood the game but she tolerated my obsession during the demonizing wars. Ilost all my rule books & over 4 dozen modules when we got divorced. But my love has lasted30 years to include combat in Iraq followed by playing during prison ! Great marathon sessions lasting 8- 15 hour sessions in the barracks as we gorged on pizza cuz they delivered 24/7 .
I've played D&D since the winter of 1975/76. I can remember when AD&D came out, there was a lot of reluctance from some people to transition from D&D to AD&D. Partly it was based upon the books not all coming out at the same time...as mentioned in this video. Others just saw AD&D as over complicating what they viewed as nothing more than a way to kill a few hours here and there.
I also remember the controversy surrounding D&D and devil worship. I found out several years after the fact that some of the kids in our school thought we were Satan worshipers because we were always talking about throwing fireballs, and killing dragons. It's laughable to think back on that.
Curious how there has always been controversy about new editions
We had a dwarf in the party in the old days who was dead set on using every ability to it's fullest. I'll never forget his constant inquiries about the dungeon... _"Is this passage... sloping??"_
Lol One of those. Good to have in a party though, very into the game and their character's traits and abilities.
@@watchmanschannelofdespair I mean, if you had to give up various things, like access to higher levels in certain classes, due to a "non-human PC tax", you're going to want to wring as much value from that choice as possible. They ARE going to make the ability to detect slopes work for them, dammit!
Given how some trick orinented DMs could use such things to get you lost and on a much harder level than you'd like to be at, I can understand the paranoia.
I remember that. My player always asked the elevation Everytime he moved, even if he never left the room.
@user-cx7kg6ok9bcrack in floor... It's gone now. Now what?
And suddenly, I am 12 years old again. Seeing the cover art of the PHB teleports me back in time to sitting with neighborhood friends huddled over a kitchen table littered with graph paper and dice. Garret and Brian's mom bringing us sun tea that has been brewing out on the pack porch, fueling the uncountable hours playing over summer vacation. Many a sister's jewelry boxes were 'borrowed' to house our prized lead figurines. Thanks for bringing back those memories.
Holy cow, hearing the part about followers being an assumed transition into wargaming was like finding a missing puzzle piece. I've never understood how those rules were meant to be used but now they make total sense!
th-cam.com/video/d3Vm7Hzp4e4/w-d-xo.html Questing Beast as well goes into a very overlooked feature found in old DnD campaigns that I think liven up worlds immensely
I think it's mentioned in another video but old D&D also had rules for controlling entire armies in pitched battles lead by your high level characters. Another part of its wargaming lineage.
Yeah, the followers just became the people at you keep/temple whatever. We weren't into mass combat war
As an AD&D DM in the 80s, the players in my campaigns would travel with their entourages, who would be charged with scouting, guarding the camp, etc. A few might flesh out the dungeon party as NPCs run by the players. Those NPCs could also gain levels, but many did not survive. Monster fodder, don't you know? 👿
@@shep1807 Sometimes we would take henchmen on adventures to carry loot and fill support roles. But it could be a huge pain to administrate all the NPCs.
Still have all my AD&D books and adventures. Massive part of my life from ages 12-18. Now almost 30 years later I'm thinking of starting a new campaign!
My mother recently passed away. Upon cleaning out her house, I found she kept all my AD&D stuff packed and put away (1st edition and also a couple of 2nd addition). Now, I too I am reading through the books and thinking whether it would still be fun to do again at 58 years old!
Got all mine as well including my copy Deities and Demigods that had the Lankhmar pantheon and such that had to be removed in Legends and Lore due to copyright. Gotta say, I'm actually impressed with how well they've held up over the years. Obviously they're not in mint condition but none of the pages are falling out and the bindings are surprisingly intact.
Same. My books are treasured posessions.
Sounds good. Never give up! My group has been together since 1995. Every Sunday from 7-10 pm. I must be doing something right. (Except for the 2009 to 2011 rules incident that is.)
Same here, have just about everything avalable for 2nd edition and not gonna give Hasbro a dime more past the 100.00 or so I spent on the 3 core books from 3rd edition
Sweden had it's own roleplaying boom in the 80's with similarly confusing and complicated rules and the same type of art. I can still remember the smell of old books in my friends apartment as we played after school, and the adventures we had. It's been almost 30 years now. Where did the time go?
Haha, I used to buy books and dice from a store (mostly books) from one called "The Lion And The Dragon" I know that smell. I like GURPS, it's simple. As a GM I've never used a "screen" like I did as a DM. My players have written novels with me. A journey, a story. Purpose was to challenge.
Same in Germany. Our local games outsold D&D over here until the 2000’s when the OGL boom steam rolled the industry.
Impressive what Sweden, ehh Free League did in the last 10 years putting Sweden on the map inna similar way how the Göteborg bands did for Heavy Metal.
Excellent synopsis of TSR’s business history. We used to run campaigns at a local gaming store (now defunct Aero Hobbies which had been located within the City of Santa Monica, California). The original owner of Aero Hobbies (Gary Switzer, Requiescet in pace) was the creator of D&D’s “Thief/rogue” class and offered his class creation to E. Gary Gygax who accepted it and incorporated it within the D&D/AD&D rule sets.
Aero Hobbies closed ? Damn. RIP.
The thief class really needed a sneaking procedure don't you think? In all that time, I don't think I ever saw an article in dragon magazine with one.
@@guyfrattallone6029 It generally went like this. "Can I sneak up on 'im, DM? Please please please"
The in depth look at the business of AD&D, failings even. Alarmingly, it is incredibly exactly what Games Workshop has transitioned into with no care for the fans/customers of their products.
@@dambrooks7578 what do you mean? What are games workshop player asking for?
Heck yes! More historical DnD content! One of the best notifications I could get!
I found my dad’s old Players Handbook and Monsters Manual when I was a kid and that’s how I learned about DnD. I didn’t understand it but I loved just flipping through the monster manual. I played 5e in high school and now am in love with OSRs and am making my own rule system. I still like to flip through the ADND stuff sometimes.
I started playing AD&D in 79/80. My DMs first adventure was the Tomb of Horrors for my 1st level Dwarven fighter, Thorin Oakenshield, big Tolkien fan. I entered the tomb walked down the tunnel and promptly fell into a spike filled pit and got killed straight off. I didn't quit playing, but it turned out if your character lived past his killer DM phase, it went to Monty Hall. And I remember all the bs religious crap. If you're out there what's up Woody?
Deities and Demigods was my favorite addition. Gave me years of reading and learning about mythology and various cultures. I learned so much BECAUSE of that book.
I remember back in the early/mid 80s as an inquisitive 11-12 year old , I was introduced to AD&D from my friend's older brother (who was 15-16 years old). Played it all summer and had an absolute blast! Good times.
Had been playing AD&D at the same time. But this little company, GDW came out with Twilight 2000, played it until we graduated high school and went down our own paths.
It was 1983 for me. It was a life changing event for sure.
I didn't start with D&D but "Basic Roleplaying" back in late 1984 and got in to AD&D a couple of years after that. I kinda miss AD&D though, while the balancing was wonky and the rulebooks were a bit unclear I could always feel the passion of the creators.
Modern D&D (particularly 4th edition) have felt more like a product then a work of passion and I enjoyed the named classes and things like your high level thief creating his or her own thieves guild.
I have been working on a new AD&D campaign to introduce the game to some younger friends who missed the entire classic AD&D era of the 80s but Covid put the entire thing on ice. I still plan to start this autumn, going full out with minis, 3D dungeons and tons of visual aides to make the game world feel a bit more magical for them.
Roleplaying in the 80s were a bit different today. Luckily my parents weren't stupid enough to fall for the "Satanist recruitment" media hype, having the kids at their place or one of their friends during the weekend playing game sounded like we would get into less trouble then if we were running around town and they had a point.
1992. Ad&d 2nd edition. I was 11, it was great.
That was a very interesting video. The part that stood out to be was the idea that Gygax wrote rules with the expectation they may not be used at the GM's discretion. It makes a lot of the modules Ive read from the era make a lot more sense if the assumption is that the GM will constantly be modifying things as needed for that group in that session, those modules by default often seem to have too many details in one area that from this lens could be read as a list of options for the GM to use rather than a list of everything that has to happen.
I also quite enjoy learning that little factoid about Gygax because its how I run all my games, a rule is only relevant if I decide its interesting as a GM or if the player has evoked it in some way. For example, the specific long jump rules would only come into my game if a player starts taking long jump feats to affect how those rules work otherwise I just make a guess at a DC and get them to roll.
Back when I played the most in the early 1980s, there were essentially two kinds of DMs -- those who saw the rules as cast in stone, and those who saw them "merely as guidelines". I always preferred the latter.
@@yes_head There was another axiom, the typical "If the rules don't say you can, you can't." and the "If the rules don't say you can't, you can." I have always been in the 2nd category because only a Killer DM would make the game more restrictive just to make it more restrictive.
the 3rd axiom was the "I'm the DM and it is my job to kill the characters" and "I';m the DM and it's my job to referee, so lets have fun." DMs.
@@kevinsullivan3448 I, funnily, hate the 2nd kind of GM, but also am him. Though, that's why when I am called upon to fill in to run, I almost always run PARANOIA or Twilight:2000. You can't say you didn't know what you were in for. At that point, not being utterly merciless to your players and turning every little thing into an uphill slog is doing it wrong.
This was a nice trip down memory lane for me. I started playing AD&D in 1981 while I was in high school. I played throughout college and post college up until D&D fourth edition. I now play Pathfinder, but I'll never forget those days playing with the guys, fussing over rules and going through home spun and published modules. Good times.
Typical. A few creative types create something good and popular, it gets profitable, and attracts soulless money hunters and posers. The creative types leave and what made the product popular is lost.
One thing often skipped over was the contradiction of "Dual Class" and Bards. This was one of many in the original AD&D rules.
The book specifically said only humans could be dual class. Yet, half-elves could become Bards. But to be a Bard, you had to be dual class. A lot of us just accepted that both humans and half-elves could be dual class to get around that.
Kind of like a similar one, where it stated "All dwarves have beards". All dwarves, even the females? Want to get a fight going in a D&D group in the early 1980s, say your female dwarf fighter has a beard.
Honestly, I find Dwarves more fun if they all have beards! Especially in DnD, gives them something extra to stand out from the other smaller races.
It should be noted that AD&D was born out of tournament play, not just transferring characters between campaigns. During tournaments, DM’s were handling the modules very differently and this was to get everyone on the same page. That’s why there are so many damn tables for every little thing.
That's a popular misconception. The reason there were tables for every little thing is because it was a proper attempt to codify the gameplay experience of early D&D campaigns in a way their first try (OD&D) couldn't. That's why, when you play OD&D and its supplements by the book, you're basically playing an early version of AD&D.
Those tournament modules were awful. Death at every corner.
To a certain extent. There was also the fact that the structure of D&D play outside tournaments was considerably more communal. Players in the dozens would get together in shared campaigns, tackling dungeons in a sandbox. Obviously this couldn't be accomplished all together, with everyone at the table at once. So players would get together in small groups, either with a shared DM or with whomever could DM at the time. (This would also explain the phenomenon of DMs having "Their Dungeon", something they would work on and refine over time. If it's a shared sandbox, each DM might be in charge of certain dungeons and how they develop.).
With players moving around and even crossing between gaming tables, in a shared milieu, it's important that one's character be "portable". To be able to point to an objective set of rules and justify why they were allowed to have what they did. No DM wants to deal with a broken magic item or overpowered PC build a player brings before them, because their normal DM let them have it.
@@Bluecho4 I’m just saying the primary reason or maybe the spark was tournament play, portability was the huge benefit. Even in AD&D we ran into issues with OP players either by a Santa DM, blind luck on rolls, or unintended consequences - I’ve been part of all 3. Santa DM because we were 9 years old and learning, unintended consequences as a bard of mine sucked in combat, I mean really bad that we created a boxing non-weapon proficiency so he could fight without a weapon because he dropped them so frequently. This was good as he got 4 attacks of 1-2 ho damage if he hit, until we randomly rolled a Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength, whoops. Finally the random rolls, our current party has a 5th level mage with a ridiculous 29 hp, but the 5thr level fighters have a 20 and 18, with the clerics at 12 and 19. On the other hand the treasure rolls have been sick with intelligent swords and armor in the +2 and +3 variety which they shouldn’t have until they get to levels 8-15. They’ve primarily been surviving by purchasing healing potions by the crate with the ridiculous treasure as trade.
Another, perhaps bigger, motive was to cut Arneson out of the royalties.
Back in the Dark Ages of the 1970's when playing D&D we would allow a certain total number of character points you could use in any stats.
It worked great. The more points you put into a stat the less you had for other stats, so it self-regulated itself fairly.
Boy this brings back memories. I played AD&D starting in 1984 when I was 13 years old. I would go over to my best friend Andrew Robertson’s house and we would play for hours. Then we would go to the Prado River Reserve with our machetes and axes and we would go fight Orcs. Well, actually they were just tree saplings that we would chop down with our machetes. Every time I see the cover of the AD&D books it brings back such memories. We played for two years but it seems like it was a lot longer. I haven’t played in almost 40 years. Nothing can replace the 80’s. It was the best time to live in the United States.
unless you were a minority lmao
Agreed fellow 80’s kid!
@@speedymolasses3062 there’s a heck of a lot more racism across the UStoday than there was then. It’s much more systemic now than it was before. Everything is all race baiting now , we have much more division. The 80s were way better than the current sorry state of this once great country.
Most people's best time was as a teen, when their emotions were at their peak, so you have the most connection to those memories.
@@speedymolasses3062 I am a minority. My mother grew up extremely poor. I didn’t let excuses get in the way of hard work and a job with the ability to make 400K a year plus 457 and lifetime medical. Don’t buy into the hype my friend
Wow thank you for this Video. I played AD&D in Middle School circa 1982 and we were oblivious to all the major moves and shakes within the industry. As a old man now its is great to understand what happened and gives great meaning to my collection.
Gary Gygax and JRR Tolkien, the two men that changed my life!
Tomb of Horrors, Keep on the Borderlands, Vault of the Drow, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Best times of my youth.
I still have the character sheet to my Paladin, Prince Matron!
Same here, Paladin Adrian Argayle, Conquerer of the Pomarj!!!
Keep on the Borderlands was my first campaign. Ah, such pre-puberty caffeine-fueled memories.
Is Prince Matron a prince or a matron? Or both, perhaps? 😲
@@FrancardNoir I felt that the description of "Force Field Protection" for Prismatic Sphere was very vague. I emailed Gygax over it and and clarified with a response.
Tomb of Horrors was so cool yet so deadly! Lots of great ideas in there for me as a fledgling DM back in the day.
I and my brother have been playing for 45 years, we stopped at 2ed " great edition" because the newer stuff out is not true D&D, only in name, and we have a very huge library of all the books and supplements, and thousands of minis and terrain, what a truly great game it is. :)
I played the crap out if 2end edition . And many things were smarter on it like if you have multiple attacks you don't just use them all at once just because you won initive . We tried 4th and hated 5th is OK. But me and my friends prefer 3.5 the most. We like the feats they like the multi classing and everyone likes the skills
I have no problem with the 3rd edition. ( I still pick up stuff when it's affordable and 2nd hand. The new 5th edition is also pretty good) but 4th is crap.
I started with the basic blue box but quickly transitioned to 2nd; wasn't a big fan of 3rd myself but to be honest haven't really looked at the last iterations. But as I already have almost everything that was published for 2nd I'm sticking to it. My oldest and her bf have been asking about the game lately...
1st & 2nd ed are the true d&d. the rest is just silly PC power-gaming product.. 3rd edition is TERRIBLE. 4TH & 5TH also complete trash. facts
@@faselessnobuddy the only system that was a total failure ?(in my opinion) was 4th edition. That is the only edition not collectable to me. I never thought 5th would make it as far as its come, and thought, Everything's Pathfinder now....how can a new version of D&D compete? Man was I wrong.
Its funny how the guys who got their start sending in articles to Dragon turned around and became the gatekeepers of RPG publishing and do everything in their power to make sure nobody else makes the same jump from fan to designer.
I think a vast majority of the baby boomer/hippie kids abandoned their values for mammon. Many of them.
That's Just for D&D, It's quite easy to move from fan to writer in other games.
That is hardly something new. Disney made a killing turning public domain stories into movies but have since spent a lot of time and money to stop their own creations becoming public domain.
@@loke6664 Ouch for your post and OP.
System Shock was part of Supplement I: Greyhawk (OD&D 1975), as was Dual Classing (but it wasn't called that). When you take OD&D (1974), plus Greyhawk (1975), Blackmoor (Monks & Assassins) (1976), Eldritch Wizardry (Druids and combat Segments) (1976), and the Strategic Review magazine (Rangers, Illusionists, Bards, and the 5-point alignment (1975-76), you basically get proto-AD&D. It ran a lot like B/X with Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy rules.
Literally the most slept on D&D TH-cam channel. Love this content
*figuratively :)
@@ROMBomb001 nah, I brought a pillow and blanket and actually slept on it
I'd love to see a continuation of this "History of _____" series, especially of it covers all the versions of D&D up to modern day.
th-cam.com/play/PLlUk42GiU2gtSENFDN3Rm2oLJLkUsaJ_A.html
Different channel, and chances are you know of this one but this is sort of what you are asking for so. . .
The good ole 'The keep on the borderlands" module started me off. What a recall in memory. I still have all my materials. But never played the newer versions of AD&D. In fact, our Friday sessions at Wargames West in Albuquerque, NM devolved into gossip and just playing video games instead of playing the DnD session in the early 80s.
"But the departure of Gary Gygax spiritually marks the end of an era."
Can't agree more. Never truly get into the newer D&D editions, I played all for like 1/2 years but the burnout is inevitable. The "old-school" feeling, the identity, the "soul" just isn't there and even with thousands of homebrew material, those editions just can't emulate the Gygax D&D. Even if now D&D it's more popular than ever I think it's a byproduct from the exposure, the internet and movies/series, not because the "D&D". More people want to play cuz they see Critical Role or other RPG shows or watch Stranger Things and search about the "game the characters are playing" but they most of them don't like the game for what it is but like the activity...
Back then I loved AD&D and AD&D 2e and still love today. Was my first system, played for almost 10 years with the same group and we grow together as friends. When the time comes and we grow up "too much" the adult life kicked in and we lose contact. I started DMing for groups and never got the same feeling if we play 3e or 4e. 5e started strong, we had hope, but then evil races from Forgotten Realms start to not be evil, all the material is just for the Sword Coast, WotC literally forgot the rest of Toril, and most of the new players think they are chosen heroes saving the world. Nothing wrong with playing like this but this just makes things boring and easy, not memorable...
Sorry for the rant, love the channel btw.
Check out Pathfinder 1e sometime. It's very well done.
Well, Forgotten Realms evil races not being evil is pretty original.
I mean Eilistraee and Peaceful Orc being original…for some reason; WoTC seems to dislike Eilistraee and mostly had to do with RA Salvatore, who said that he dislike her. Even not evil Drows seem to ignore Eilistraee.
But the activity is the game? I think D&D becoming more widely known is a good thing because it becomes open to a lot of players who may have seen it as a weird niche
Very excited for the next video...especially since that's my PoR speedrun featured in the monitor!
Man, the RESEARCH that goes into these style of vids.
I'm really diggin' yer channel, man! WELL DONE!
I still think Gygax was right. He was explaining a concept and giving help. The important thing is to create fantasy and fun and a "realistic" campaign and not to get caught up in tables, rules and charts which gets tedious and boring.
When I played AD&D and the DM told us we needed to find trainers to level up, we went on a long, dangerous and almost impossible quest which took a year’s worth of play sessions, to find a dimensional portal to the real planet Earth in modern times, so we could buy trainers at a shoe store. Only then did we discover that the DM meant the other definition of the word “trainers”.
Ah, you travelled to the far-off Kingdom of Angle-land. 😁
@@mxplixic more like Oz-Traylya
Lol! Served you right for thinking in English instead of American!
@@jerryrose2083 😲 “Trainers” doesn’t refer to shoes in the USA?
@@SimonAshworthWood No, those type of shoes are called "tennis shoes" or "sneakers" in the US.
I never found a group for AD&D, and Mom was against it due to suicide/demons rumor. I was going to comment on the wisdom of having demonic characters and altars on the cover of rulebooks, but apparently it didn't hurt sales. In college I was invited me to join their GURPS group, but the adventures weren't great for the time spent. I liked TSR's Dragon Strike, but played more hours of GW's Warhammer Quest, although it too has problems as you level up. I currently don't have a group but have played Castle Ravenloft and Descent one-on-one.
As and "old guy" who first played D&D Basic Edition with some of my middle school friends, I really enjoyed this video. We quickly transitioned to the newly published AD&D manuals - I can recall checking Sears and a local bookstore every week until the PHB and DMG were released!
Now, I play and DM in two AD&D campaigns on Roll20 with a group of other old schoolers who found their people once again... there ain't nothing like fantasy RPG adventuring!!!
Wonderful coverage! Keep up the great work!
My dad thought D&D was a cult recruiting system and forbid me to play it. I had to hide my books or give them to my friends I played with til dad came to reason. 17:10
There were two approaches to playing D&D in California in the mid-80’s. There were the Dragon Dice heads, who insisted on rolling and crafting new matrixes if a player wanted to order a pizza or go to the bathroom. And there were the storytellers. We were the avid readers of the Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Chronicle of Pyrdian & Dragon Quest books who used our skills to draw multiple page maps that took D&D to a new, vibrant level of choose your own adventure seasoned with the golden age of radio “theater of the mind.” You can infer from which category I hailed. For some of us once you DM’d there was no going back. Ironically my original team all met attending Fremont Christian School. As a 50 year old Christian I can now see the church’s concern back then but playing was so immersive and so much fun and frankly the church offered nothing that could even come close by comparison. Satan (as in Beelzebub, the real devil) hides in EVERYTHING. From Harry Potter to porn. Workaholism to religious zealotry. But the Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob is who gave me the hyper creativity that writing D&D modules as an adolescent nurtured. What other game can profess to churning out hundreds of dedicated 12 year old writers who hunched over pen & graph paper pages instead of out riding BMX bikes? We learned to paint our little pewter figurines while our friends were shooting windows with BB guns.
I basically ignored fifth & sixth grade in favor of writing my own modules. One trip through the Keep on the Borderlands and within months I was buying hexagonal graph paper & creating new worlds outside the dungeon environment. My games were THE BEST in Fremont, CA circa 1984-86. But then my kid brother let some overzealous youth ministers talk him into burning all of my D&D stuff. Every map. Every module. Every game board. Even my pewter characters. Hundreds of dollars in mowed lawns and washed cars and hundreds of hours learning to write…
poof💥🔥 Gone. Now, today I’m a dedicated Christian and he’s a dedication Portland leftist. Go figure.
Aside from hundreds of quarters lost playing Dragons Lair at the local cineplex it was all harmless. What the church should’ve been worrying about was what happened two years later when D&D pizza parties turned into “parents are away/beer bashes and toking Mexican weed” parties. That’s when the devil really came to town.
Amen brother. I too, am a Christian. Sorry to read your books and work burned up. Hope you're able to find a local or on-line group to play. There are many like-minded Christian role-playing groups out there. Worldwide. Blessings.
Pride is a sin in your religion by the way.
I have great memories of AD&D back in the mid 80s. Only problem I had with it was I seemed to always have to be the dungeon master as I was pretty good at coming up with the scenarios and the dungeons and so on. Telling the story etc. I wanted to play! But anyway, I really wish I had all of those great D&D reference books like the one in the thumbnail for this video and more I had. Man, I would spend hours just looking through all those monsters , all their stats and reading their stories. I was enthralled.
Right with ya. Those books were just so much fun to read..
Excellent video that brought back so many nostalgic memories. I could comment on so much covered here, but I'll start with Dieties and Demigods. I first saw the original "Deities & Demigods" from a junior high friend who owned a ragtag copy of it. It was a HUGE disappointment that MY copy was missing two mythos. A decade later I found the 1st Edition at a used bookstore, but by the early 1990s, my hobby interests had shifted, and I never play tested the deities from the Cthulhu and Melniborean Mythos.
To tell these apart, the first edition "Deities & Demigods" has the "wizard" TRS logo with sans-serif font on the lower right of the front cover. The reprint has the "face" logo with script font. Mythos are alphabetical and listed on Page 3. Also the original edition has 144 pages and the later release is 128 pages.
Fascinating. I love learning about the older editions. It's so interesting to see how they're different, and why things were done that way.
I was a rules lawyer: I read from cover to cover the 2nd Edition AD&D Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Compendium, plus some supplemental guides like the Book of Elves. Such a waste of time. nobody ever follows the rules.
Please do a full video on Agienst the giants, the first adventure path/campaign series
Very interesting! And thanks for the game recommendations at the end!
Thank you for this great video. I started playing (and kept playing) AD&D in the early & mid 1980s in Jr. High, in the small bible-belt town of Harrison, Arkansas that seriously put the "bible" in "bible belt", and I have horrible memories of being persecuted for it. Getting caught in school with D&D material during that "satanic panic" era was enough to get you repeatedly beaten & assaulted. School officials turned a blind eye to this too, tacitly encouraging the "weird kids getting beaten up" and concluded that I somehow deserved it.
The way Gary got stabbed in the back as he did appalls me to this day. Also, William Dear is/was an absolute putz. Him posing with his absurd little James Bond pistol with his finger carelessly on the trigger will make any actual firearms instructor cringe and want to slap him. Did he need his gun to find a missing, emotionally distraught teenager?? What were we expected to think he was somehow protecting us from with it? More satanic D&D playing teens? He was a grand-standing glory hound and a media shill. Screw that guy.
Dear was never anti-D&D. He - and the police - just needed to distract attention away from the real reasons for James Dallas Egbert’s disappearance. Any harm he did to the hobby was unintentional and done with James Dallas Egbert’s interests in mind. Of course, the most detailed account we have is his and he undoubtedly painted himself in the best light, but I reckon those things are true. He never showed any later hostility towards D&D and did genuinely seem to care about James’ welfare.
@@drzander3378 I think that is Edgar's point, Dear used the then-latent panic that had been fomenting to his advantage and ended up screwing a generation of teens and young adults in the process. He never really had any real care or sensitivity about J.D.E. and that couldn't be clearer from his book, only for his absurd profile
It's still weird to me that people consider 'illusionist' a class in AD&D when it was just one example of the Wizard Specialist, which was the standard wizard next to the generalist Mage.
D&D was a lot of fun through the early 1990's. When I took it up again in the early '00's, it felt like needing a lawyer and an accountant just to play. It also didn't help that I was playing under rules where any magic items available to you had barely anything to do with the actual module you were playing and they had to be bought using a meager amount of gold that was given as a flat payment for surviving and successfully completing the module. You'd have to play a TON of module just to afford something like the tooth-pick of extra minty cleaning or something lame like that. So I stopped playing altogether. Plus, the Wizards were pumping out new editions of rule books like they were college math books.
I started playing AD&D from the beginning when I was 11 years old and have been playing it since. And to this day I still run a group of players using AD&D and use the world of greyhawk as our setting
One of my favorite channels. Great work!
The other thing that always gets missed is before the "Satanic Panic" controversy, parents (at least in the midwest) were suspicious of the game because there were no winners or losers. That just did not compute to them that you could have a game and not have someone win. Smacked of communism. Since they were already distrustful, it was easier to accept the game was more nefarious still.
I never heard of communism angle, and thst angle makes you smack of communist superstition revising history because you believe capitalism has winners and losers, whichmis a communist perspective of capitalism, not a capitalistic perspective of capitalism. Are you sure you are telling it truly?
Satanic panic in the 80s was common for many movie themes, accussations against nursuries, possibly certain doom cults like the Manson family. But saying communism because no winners and losers...I may have heard of thst being strange, but the idea of winners and losers is a capitalist thing is a communist propaganda against capitalism...obviously. capitalists dont believe capitalism makes winnners and losers.
@@mitchellslate1249 I'd say winners and losers is pretty much exactly what capitalism is about. If someone is making a profit, then somewhere along the line, someone is making a loss. Things don't magic out of nowhere; even if a lot of that is human labour and ingenuity. Which is not to say that there isn't also some mutual benefit in capitalism. However someone will come off better because someone else is prepared to work for or supply them somewhere along the chain for less.
At 25:29 I realized I had bought everything shown, from the box set to the 2 Gods books. At the end yep every D&D/AD&D book sold. Even the World of Grey Hawk world map. A few years worth of Dragon mags... damn I'm a nerd!
As a kid, I would read a ton of books. These books were generally fantasy. I read a lot of Forgotten Realms books. I did not play D&D, for reference.
Eventually, my parents decided that just having a kid who actually reads isn't good enough, that kid needs to read some non-fiction books. So, they made me get a non-fiction book on each visit to the library.
One of those books, that I either got, or at least perused when considering what book to get, was one of these propaganda books that claimed D&D was satanic. I don't remember much about it, but I do remember finding it absolutely hilarious.
I started with a basic D&D set found in a neighbor's house during a grown-ups xmas party, arnd 1980. V cool & became one of the AD&D kids in high school in early 80s. I had all the books (up to F Folio 2), but missed all those appendix rules you've mentioned.
For myself, I was always most inspired by the cover art; apparently they weren't just random illustrations, they actually had refs to the content - was seriously engrossed, & marked all my game play...
P.S. growing up in Perth, W Australia, we missed all that 'satanic-panic' stuff, thank God!
This is an amazing history lesson and your channel is a treasure trove!!
(Born in 1979) My friends and I played AD&D in high school. We were in a Star Trek club and the club president ran a D&D game that he had been running for nearly twenty years. It was a huge pain in the ass to play as a lvl 1 character in a 50 character epic. He refused to power level us. A few years later in college, I met my best friend and we started playing 3rd edition in 2000. Though we’re on 5th edition now and have changed characters a number of times, we are STILL playing the exact same FR campaign setting that we started 22 years ago! My 11yo daughter has even started to play with us off an on. It is crazy how much staying power TTRPGs can have. Thanks for the video!
Roled my first character on the playground in 5th grade in 1979. Except for "Rolemaster" (aka MERP), and Paranoia, I gave up on most RPGs after Gygax left TSR. I found most of the changes made to AD&D and to newer RPGs were like JRPGs compared to Ultima. In other words, pretty maybe, but mostly pretty lacking, or made for simple minds.
There is also Super-Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. You only could play an ORC and you had to HATE ALL humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and well, anyone who didn't bow before your Orcish might, so Goblins are Kool, but only if they recognize your Orc Swagger and Orc Mojo. Otherwise, you had Orc Rage and could unleash it on any fools stupid enough to cross you. Some called it Orc-O-Centric, but it was simply reflecting the reality that being an Orc was Awesome and players, most of them at least, found it superior to playing lesser creatures. The game nick named Orc Dungeons and Dragons, and the only way you got to play it was through invitation only.
If you didn't know someone then you could not join the special elite club of Orc players. At some point one of the Orc players fell in love with a non-Orc and the Half Orc was made, and this got later inserted into Advanced Dugneons and Dragons so lesser non-superior characters and their equally less Kool players could experience the Ultra Koolness and Singularity Power of being one of the Chosen, one of the Orcs, at least Half of an Orc.
So you shall find the Half Orc as a character option in the ADnD, but those who played Super-Advanced Dungeons and Dragons know that there was a superior game to both Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Only now, has permission been given by the Orc Gods to reveal this lore to the general public. Orc players, the original ones, all got special Orc Clan tattoos so the next time you meet an Old School Gamer from way back in the day. Maybe try and look to see if they have one of those Tattoos.
Orc's had 10-sided Hit Dice, and Maximum Number 13, the Holy Special Magic Number of the Orc Gods. Additional points per level Thereafter was +3, maximum level 20th.
The Orc could acquire a holy weapon of Ultimate Rage, which allowed special powers against Humans, Elves and other Demi-Humans. It allowed the Orc to Radiate Fear and against other Orcs and Goblinoids, Respect in the form of Mojo and Swagger. The Orc could impose and project the Mojo, and Swagger so that other Orc's knew that the Orc with the Ultimate Rage was Way Kooler than they were so they should Know their Place and Shut their Damn Fool Mouth, unless given permission to speak by their superior Orc Brother or Sister.
AD&D, in my opinion, was the best version. You pointed out why at roughly 33:00. Everything after Monster Manual 2 kind of started turning the game less into a game-flow, and more into a bunch of lawyers arguing over precedent. Oriental Adventures, Unearthed Arcana, Manual of the Planes, Spelljammer, those all kind of lost a magic that Gary had imbued the others with. THACO sucked,
The original modules, like the Giants series, Q1, the Ravenloft series, , and of course, the S series (arguably my favorite) were all inspiration for home brews. I love the fact that with the core three AD&D books ( though I do love me some deities and some fiends), a pad of graph paper, pencil and dice, you never really needed to buy anything else, just exercise a bit of creativity, So much fun!
I started playing in Jr. high, with the original AD&D.
We modded THE CRAP out of those rules, and we completely rebuilt the magic system to something that looks a lot more like the magic in Oblivion or Skyrim than that dumb memorize the spell, forget it after you cast it and memorize it again. That was just DUMB.
Lorraine Williams had some... Opinions on the gaming hobby. She absolutely hated Dungeons & Dragons and anyone associated with it, seeing it as a game of devil worship, and all the players pagan. She refused to let people playtest anything written, claiming it was "playing games on company time," so nothing in second edition was properly balanced. Oh, and she purposefully made 2nd edition as a way to screw Gygax out of royalties.
When Magic: the Gathering came out, she pushed through TSR's own card game, which crashed and burned hard, and the entire time she was trying to push buck rogers products, since it meant she would get money from her properties. And in the end, when she was done with the burned remains of the company, she sold the entire thing to Wizards of the Coast.
Alignment languages were I think supposed to be more like Black Speech in mordor
Runequest was so much better. :) Coherent, understandable, consistent, easily playable, fewer gimmicks and *slightly* less concerned with selling you the Next Book Published
Is there any chance this series gains retrospectives on the history of the game going forward into 2e, 3, 3.5 Pathfinder vs 4e and then 5es beginnings? I'd imagine people would be interested in learning about the entire story
Nice history lesson. It's fun to learn about the history of older editions. Not interested in playing them though, but I like seeing the origins for a lot of things. I don't like a lot of the older mechanics, but I regularly take lore and monsters from older editions as DnD has so many cool creatures that didn't make it into 5e, (like yellow, grey, pink, or steel dragons).
I remember when I was 10 I wanted this game so bad. My parents was informed from church that this is satanist tool to recruit new worshipers. This stunted my growth in this game.
Some kids never grow up. Dr. Zom was my very first AD&D character, an MU, and is still with me some 30+ years later.
That moment when Gary Gygax leaves TSR because it's been taken over by corporate moneymen and the video stops to air an ad for D&D Beyond
I actually have always liked the looser rule set. To me, strict rules are kinda antithetical to fantasy. As a DM, I mishmash rules from all the various releases as I please. To me the concept is to have a fun story and adventure and not endlessly be hunting ing tables and esoteric rules.
Loved this game until Wizards took it over. They can have it.
Why is the new stuff considered bad by some? Elven paladins? I bought some of the 5th edition books out of curiosity. One thing I can say is it seems like a good idea to have very good armor classes. Before a -10 was about as good as it got. With this newer version, you could have a 45 or more(equivalent of a -25) I grew up on 2nd edition. I've never got to play 5th edition so I really don't know how it would go.
I always liked to play combat-oriented Clerics. Kick ass, heal up, and kick ass again tomorrow.
The 1st Edition DMG didn't just *clarify* rules in the 1st Edition PHB, it outright *replaced* some of them. For example, the rules for how many spells a 1st level magic-user character has in his/her spellbooks. The PHB gives a % chance to know each 1st level magic-user spell in the master list, and gives a max number of allowed spells, based on the magic-user's intelligence. The DMG, on the other hand, says that a 1st level magic-user always has exactly 4 spells in his/her spellbooks, one of which must be "read magic", and the other 3 of which are basically "one from column A, one from column B, and one from column C" -- and any further spells must be acquired by finding scrolls or spellbooks and copying them there with a "write" spell.
As a lazy dm, and one that felt that wizards were weak at the beginning of their careers, I'd let my wizard players allways get Read Magic, Detect Magic, and Magic Missile for free at start. Then let them pick 2d4 others.
Just try not to get wrapped up in useless timekilling rules and keep that game flowing!
I played AD&D back in the late 70s. My grade 9 science teacher was our dungeon master at school twice a week. Then we bought the books and played at home. I still have all my original AD&D books and about 10 modules. :)
Kind of forgot about Margaret Weis there when discussing Dragonlance.
System shock is the gibbering grandpa of the so called Death Save.
Any plans on doing something on the other editions as well? 3rd, 3.5, 4th, 5th?
I forgot all about alignment languages. Looking back its a pretty funny concept.
I had some of the old ad&d dungeon master books from 79, but sadly got stolen
Actually Gary wrote AD&D to stop paying royalties to Arneson... .