I began in 1980 through 1990 and as a teenager it was a horribly confusing period. Things kept coming out and we didn't really know what was changing and we generally ignored them, doing either whatever first Basic version we had or played AD&D and ignored most supplements, focusing on modules. It was like a lot of background noise to us.
I definitely understand that with regard to all the different non-Advanced versions that were coming out (B/X, then BECMI, Easy-to-Master, Rules Cyclopedia, Classic D&D...). I had the Basic Box & the Expert Rulebook from the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh edition and pretty ignored all the later printings as it seemed like they weren't really changing all that much. Thanks for watching and commenting! I appreciate it!
I started in 1990, age 11. I definitely ran 1E and 2E together without understanding that they were two separate, if very similar, games. It caused a lot of confusion. Not to mention all the basic modules
@@asafoetidajones8181 My group was the same in the early 80's with Basic vs Advanced, but we didn't realize we were confused! We just mixed them together and ignored the inconsistencies!
That could be a good topic. It'd probably have to be broken into a few different videos but it's something I can add to my list of potential topics. Thanks for the idea!
@@daddyrolleda1 I'd also find a longer version interesting. It was good to keep this video relatively short and factually neutral but I'd also like to see a version with some explanations what people liked/disliked about the editions, why the OSR focuses on some and not on others, why Pathfinder was forked off, etc. Those topics would me more controversial but interesting to someone like me who has some history with TTRPG but outside of D&D.
Even as someone who started playing AD&D in 1981 I found this video interesting and informative. People who came to the hobby later on, especially those who grew up with Google always at their fingertips, might be surprised to learn that the hodge podge of early editions was just as confusing to most players who lived through that era as it is to them. Little if anything was published explaining the rationale behind all the different sets and even game shop staff were often confused about just how they related to one another. At least where I grew up, the big increase in the game's popularity seemed to coincide with the release of the AD&D PHB and DMG, so that's what most of us played. Kids who had started with one of the boxed sets usually switched when they joined a school D&D club or similar group for the sake of compatibility. I get the impression that the boxed sets were more popular in less populous areas where small groups of geeky kids had to figure the game out without the benefit of a local gaming community but I could be wrong about that.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! That's an interesting theory! I myself started with Moldvay Basic in a smaller town (a suburb in Salt Lake City) but we quickly added in stuff from the Advanced D&D books we found at our local library, as at the time we didn't understand they were technically two separate games! So, that does coincide with how even the folks playing the games (and the store staff) didn't know the differences!
@@RichBensen Ha! I know, right?! My dad got transferred there for his work (we came from the Bay Area, then Reno, then SLC so it was quite the culture shock!). Some kids saw me reading some books about King Arthur mythology and asked if I'd read the Hobbit (I had) or Conan (I had not) and that started a conversation that led to them telling me about D&D. And to your point, looking back, it is surprising how open they were about it! A friend's mom gave me an issue of Dragon magazine for my birthday and other friends bought me some 1E hardbacks!
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), I only ever met one adult who was anti-FRP. The Satanic Panic was not really a thing for Mormons because of our beliefs (in that a thing is neither good nor evil, it is how it is used. Blame the GM, not the rules set.) I myself grew up in a small rural community and didn't come across any game books till 1981 when I was in a book store and found a display of TSR books. It wasn't long before I was introduced to other games, like The Fantasy Trip; and by 1986 I had traveled around the world and played a dozen different games that were not published by TSR, though everyone also played AD&D everywhere I went.
There are a number of 1rst edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hardcover books that were missed. Deities & Demigods (1979), Fiend Folio (1980), Monster Manuel 2 (1983) and Oriental Adventures (1986)
Thank you for watching and commenting. I covered all of those in a subsequent video on "The History of Advanced D&D Hardbacks": th-cam.com/video/M3ygZCjLqAk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=auUg_dWKJdrxvu4s This video wasn't intended to cover every *product* published for each edition, but rather just show a sampling of each. Deities & Demigods was published in 1980, the Fiend Folio in 1981, and Oriental Adventures in 1985. I also didn't talk about the Manual of the Planes (1987), Dragonlance Adventures (1987), or Greyhawk Adventures (1988).
My friends and I never really got into the D&D side of things, but we got every book of (1st Edition) AD&D. It would be interesting to mention the cover prices of those hardcovers and convert to the current equivalent cost...for high school teens in the US, these were not cheap!
Good idea! I can cover that in a future video. I have all the AD&D hardbacks except one (Manual of the Planes) so I could go through them in a video. Thanks for the idea!
Zeb Cook wrote the “X” in B/X, as well as The Isle of Dread. Mentzer made almost zero changes for his edition of Expert because he thought it was so well done.
Yes! I recorded so many versions of this video and in a few of them, I went into details on the authors on the various editions and what else they had written (Zeb also wrote Oriental Adventures for 1E, etc.) but it was getting way too long and not really adding to the narrative of describing the different editions. Thanks for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
@@mirtos39 I started with Moldvay/Cook also, but by the time they got around to the Mentzer Companion, my friends had already moved to AD&D, so I never explored the Mentzer version other than through the Gazetteers.
Got in with 3.5, but have always looked back on Older Editions Longingly (Except 2e AD&D for the most part...I love the new and imaginative settings, but Lorraine Williams "No Playtesting" Policy leaves a bad taste in my mouth). Favorite would probably be BECMI (although probably using the Rules Cyclopedia-era Wrath of the Immortals rules for that level of play...), but have always been a bit confused as to the difference between B/X and BECMI mechanics-wise...most I've gotten so far were some very opinionated comments from the B/X crowd about stretching B/X Thief Skills over the 36 levels of BECMI instead of creating new ones for the Companion and Master Supplements.
In the early 80's , my favorite thing was going to the mall and seeing which new D&D supplements and books were out. that and the Hildebrandt Tolkien Calendars were my childhood.
I bought my first set (the White box) in 1976 (19 years old) when I found a copy in a small shop called Games Centre just off Oxford Street in London. I spent several weeks slowly working out how to play this weird game. I bought the four supplements (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry and GD&H) over the next year and that made things clear. I played games on an irregular basis for a number of years and gradually collected the books for 1st edition AD&D. I didn't start running a campaign until 1984 with a group of friends and relatives. This started with 1st edition but I converted to 2nd edition as soon as I could. I never used the 2.5 edition but I did play the BECMI version from time to time. My campaign came to an end in 2001, mostly due to various life events that happened to the players. I've never played since and never had the opportunity to start anew. But it's good to see the game still going.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and sharing your RPG "journey." I love hearing about how other people got into the game and their campaigns over the years. What prompted you to buy the White Box when you saw it? Did you go to the shop specifically looking for that game, or did you pick it up only after you saw it on the shelf? I started playing in 1981 with Moldvay Basic but didn't really start DM'ing a campaign until 2001 with 3E (which is still going to this day, in addition to the campaign I run for my daughter and her friends, for which I'm back to using Moldvay Basic). I'm sorry you haven't had a chance to play since. Maybe things will change and you can start up again. Here's hoping!
@@daddyrolleda1 I picked up a magazine called 'Games & Puzzles' to read on the train home from work. It had an article on D&D and where to buy it. So I went there specifically to get the game. Well done for keeping your campaign going!😊😊
I am missing gods and heroes. Also from 77 I have volume 1-3 of the Arduin Grimoire by David Hargrave and the book of monsters by Phil Edgren. Thanks for the video, forgot I had these.
That's so cool you have the old Arduin Grimoire stuff. I remember see ads for those in Dragon Magazine but I never saw them at any shop I had near me, and to this day I've never read them. Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
I've been playing since 76 and the white boxes. We were totally fans of the game, but like most players back then, didn't know that Chainmail was the ruleset and the white box the supplements. So, we were trying to play the white box as a ruleset with not much success and that prevented us from having a really good gaming experience. When the Holmes version came out, that was when we really discovered the game and I was hooked from then on. I've played every edition ever since (and still own all the core books from every edition, sans the Greyhawk and Blackmoor supplements, alas), but my favourite is 2e, with 5e a close second and 4e coming in a close third. Basic will always hold a special place for me, though.
Thanks for watching, and for sharing your D&D history! I started with Moldvay Basic and only discovered Holmes & OD&D after the fact. Sadly, I didn't pay Holmes much time, and I only looked at OD&D as an oddity/relic. My friend had a copy of the Greyhawk Supplement he didn't want any more, and I found a pretty clean copy of Blackmoor (the one you see in the video) on a shelf at my shop back around 1983 for only $5.00. But I didn't get a White Box until around 1999 or so (a gift from my mom). I collected a bunch of 2E stuff and created a bunch of NPCs and scenarios for it, but never got a chance to play, as we moved around the time it came out and I lost my group. By the time I found a new one, they were playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, so that's what I played for a while until 3E came out.
My brothers and I attempted to play the white box set, created characters and a dungeon, but quickly found out combat was missing. I only recently found out chainmail was the missing part.
@@edtcrandall Yeah, there was the Chainmail system, requiring another book, or the very poorly explained alternate system (which ended up being the default!).
Thanks for watching and commenting. I didn't skip them - my intent wasn't to show every book from every edition, but rather to take about different editions as a whole. So, I covered the original 1E books and mentioned Unearthed Arcana as a sort of turning point that some folks say indicates the start of a "1.5 Edition" (although some say that didn't happen until non-weapon proficiencies in Oriental Adventures & the two Survival Guides). There are tons of other 1E books I didn't include in this one, such as the Fiend Folio, Deities & Demigods, Monster Manual II, Dragonlance Adventures, Greyhawk Adventures, and Manual of the Planes, but similarly I didn't include any supplemental books for 2E, 3E, 4E, or 5E.
@@Bren71319 Yeah, fair enough. I recorded several versions of the video and they were all getting way too long, so I tried to cut this one down to just the core moments but perhaps I cut out a bit too much.
First printing (Wood box) = January 1974. Fourth printing (White box) = November 1975. D&D Basic set first printing = July 1977 with lizard logo and code in the upper right is F115-R.
I first saw some guys playing D&D, probably in 1977 or 78, using the white box set. They had a huge map on a dining room table and it seemed like they were fighting a huge battle. I just had to play this game! Later some friends of mine got me playing with the Basic set and the Keep on the Borderlands module. I later was playing with those same guys I had first watched playing D&D and they were still using the White Box set but it wasn't long before they were using the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books. Few of us could afford these books and we shared them. Letting players read them here and there meant that hardly any of us really knew the rules. You mostly knew the rules for the character classes that you played. For me it was the Thief and I studied those rules. Others like playing mages and knew those rules backwards and forwards. It was those few that had started with the original box set that knew most of the rules and those ended up being our Dungeon Masters. When 2nd edition came around, most of us weren't too thrilled with it. Some stuff we liked but most we didn't. So we kept the best and threw out the rest. We never did really stop using AD&D. We just added stuff we liked into our games, just like we did in the past with all the cool stuff that came out in magazines. We kept what we liked and dumped the rest.
Thank you for watching and commenting, and sharing your history with the game! I love reading stories like this. Your experiences are very similar to mine except that I started with B/X. But as far as not reading all the rules because we were sharing books, and also using bits and pieces we liked from Dragon, etc. - we totally did that!
Hi there! I love that you are putting this info out there so simply and so concisely! I am fortunate enough to have almost literally every single book and box set that you mentioned, including the obscure ones like the Black Box! To hear someone actually talk about all of this stuff that I’ve spent thousands of dollars on has really put a smile on my face! Excellent video, you have a new follower!
Thank you so much for watching, commenting, and subscribing! I really appreciate it. That's so cool that you have all the different editions! I started with B/X and immediately began incorporating stuff from AD&D but after that, I was pretty careful with my purchases because I didn't have a ton of money. I skipped the BECMI line because I didn't think I needed it since it seemed so similar to Moldvay. I contemplated getting the Companion Set since B/X stops at Level 14, but then decided I could just get by with AD&D. So that's why those are missing from my collection. By the time 2E came out, the gaming group I found had switched to playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay so while I got the PHB & Monstrous Manual, I didn't get any other 2E stuff. Thanks again!
I have the tan box. I found out The Denning text/black box text is where the weird contradicting "you can't move and attack" rules text in the Rules Cyclopedia comes form.
First d&d my friends and i played, roughly 25 years ago, was based off a 1st edition ad&d players handbook (late 80s i think?) And a 2nd edition dungeon master guide . We found both at a yardsale and nome of us had played before. So we used a weird hodgepodge of rules into 3.0 came out haha
We all played a hodge-podge, too! I started with Moldvay Basic in 1981 and very quickly thereafter discovered AD&D through friends. We mixed and matched the two systems, as we didn't realize at the time that Basic was not supposed to lead into Advanced, but rather it was a different game. When 2E came out, I was working on a campaign and I shifting to the 2E rules.. "kind of." I kept using Cavaliers, Barbarians, Assassins, and Half-Orcs, all of which had been removed from 2E (at least the initial core book) but I updated them with Non-Weapon Proficiencies, etc. That style of play was very common until 3E came out, as that edition was so different mechanically that trying to mix and match stuff became a chore. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed the video! It's one of my favorites. Thank you for watching and commenting. A discussion about the various modules is on the list of potential future videos. Thanks!
Supplement one Greyhawk was the first D&D book I ever bought.. on sale in a NJ mall hobby store sitting on the clearance shelf. Had to be be in 1980 and I convinced my mom to buy it for me to read.. and there it began, I remember getting the basic Holmes blue box edition shorty after as a gift from a family member and AD&D right after that. I won't touch a WotC D&D product these days and even by the mid 80s I preferred Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay over D&D at least until the early nineties and Dark Sun came around.. Lots of nostalgia, too bad the IP has fallen so far over the last 20 years
Thank you very much for watching and commenting, and also for sharing you story/history with the game. I started playing in 1981, but I remember discovering the existence of the Greyhawk Supplement while at a sleepover at a friend's house. That book was my first exposure to Original D&D. In the mid-80's, we moved and I lost my gaming group. My new group in my new state was playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay so I lost about a decade of playing D&D until I came back to play 3rd Edition. I got really into that edition and am still running a 3E/Pathfinder1E campaign that began in May 2001. But I'm also back to my roots running a 1981 Moldvay Basic game for my 13yo daughter and her friends, and having a blast! That said, I quite like many things with 5E. While I don't play or run that edition, I've borrowed a few ideas from it to include in my other games. 4E had a really good Dungeon Master's Guide in terms of advice for running games, and also had a really good concept in the Monster Manual for running minions for monsters. I try to peruse through each edition to see if there's anything useful, new, or creative I can incorporate into my games.
you know, its amazing how little progress there has been for the mechanics of a d20 system. its been add numbers or remove numbers and recently they had the idea of Roll 2 and pick the lowest highest! (which spoiler increases or reduce the average by 66% percent)
Firstly, thank you for commenting! And secondly, my apologies for the very delayed response! I didn't see a notification for your comment so just luckily ran across it today! Yes, 5E introduced Advantage/Disadvantage, which I prefer to 3E/3.5's long list of various plus-and-minus modifiers (and don't get me wrong - I played 3.X for a really long time and am still running a game using that system). As far as the math, what I've seen is that using Advantage/Disadvantage increases or reduces the die roll by an average of 4.5, or 22.5%. Then again, I am really not great at math so I may have misunderstood!
@@daddyrolleda1 the way i heard it is that it increses or reduces it by 3.5, but it doubles the chances to crit miss or hit. the problem with d20s is that there VERY little you can do to them other than increasing the number or adv/disadv.
@@DareToWonder Makes sense. I do like the idea of rolling dice, as it adds a totally random element to the game that can then be narrated as to its effects. I have a very good friend who has min-maxed his character in the game I run for him (been going since May 2001) that his chance of failing any kind of roll/check is very low. He does that on purpose because his personality is that he doesn't want to be surprised, and he also looks at character creation as an exercise in how to "beat the system." My style is that I like (as James Maliszewski put it) the "oracular power of the dice." I *want* there to be surprises I didn't expect, and as a DM, that gives me some real fun, as I have to figure out how to narrate what the dice just indicated. As a player, he really dislikes that. 😀
Thanks for watching and commenting! I played and ran a ton of 3E/3.5 & am still running a campaign for that system that began in May 2001. But, once it wraps, I won't ever run that system again. I'd play it if someone else ran it. But I don't want to change systems this close to the campaign end. I'm also running Old School Essentials for my 13yo daughter and her friends! I have the Advanced Books, but other than the monsters, I haven't included anything else yet. We are having a blast - easily the most fun I've had running a D&D game.
GREAT VIDEO! Small addition but in 1992 there was an revised edition of the Immortals Box to be used with the Rules Cyclopedia (iirc) called "Wrath of the Immortals" 😃
Oh, that's right! One day I might re-make this video and I'll make sure to include that! I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and thank you very much for watching and commenting!
I first played AD&D in the fall of 1980 with group of military members in Germany (I was in the Air Force). I continued to play (even DMing) through 3rd edition. I started to feel fatigue when endless supplements were released. I didn't do 4th edition. I recently briefly joined a 5th edition campaign and bought a player's handbook. I prefer 3rd edition.
I started just shortly after you, in 1981, with Moldvay B/X, but in terms of total number of hours of playing, I've spent the most time playing 3E/3.5/Pathfinder1E (I kind of just lump them all together). I played 4E just two times, and it wasn't for me, but, I don't begrudge players for liking it. I've played 5E a handful of times, and while I would choose to not run that system, if someone invited me to a game, I would totally play it. But I also know my PC would be less effective than other PCs because I don't spend time on things like "builds" and figuring out the math to do cool combos, etc. And again, I totally don't begrudge people who do that. It's just not my style of playing. I'm not good at it, and that's partly because my enjoyment of the game does not come from system mastery. But for folks who like that, I think that's awesome!
I know I am not being accurate when I say this, but to me, there are 7 stages of D&D. 5e, 4e, 3e, 2e, 1e, Mentzer Basic (where I started)/BECMI, and "What came before me".
Ha! Yeah, I think that's a common way of looking at it. It's definitely muddied and there really aren't clear definitions to a lot of these things. For example, "1E" is a name that was never used. There was Advanced D&D, and then Advanced D&D 2nd Edition, and then D&D 3rd Edition. And the non-Advanced line didn't have any numbers. Every time, it was just called "Dungeons & Dragons" even through retroactively, we distinguish them as Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, Black Box, Rules Cyclopedia, Classic D&D... But technically those are all the same game. From what I've seen online, BECMI seems to have been the gateway for far more folks than the edition I began with (Moldvay or "B/X") even though the old-school community tends to prefer tinkering around with B/X more as a game chasis for whatever reason.
One nugget to add is the Ranger class was added in 1975 from an issue of The Strategic Review vol. 1 no. 2 newsletter. That was then printed in the AD&D 1e Player's Handbook. There were a lot of fringe rules that came out that way or in Dragon magazine first, but the real-deal rule books is where it really counted. :-) I just wanted to add that, since I am a junkie for the old Ranger class... my favorite still. ;-)
I was, and am still very much in love with the 2nd edition (AD&D). Tho the system is obtuse and hard to understand with too many small rules that don't add much and complicate the flow of the game sessions, it had the best spells (especially with the Forgotten Reams ones) and the Triple classes were to me an absolute joy to play. The different experience curved and max HP limits really help balance the game. It was FAR more balanced than the 3rd or 3.5ed, not to mention those 5 saving throws so that every class had an edge against something. Sadly, I am the ONLY one at my table that loves it and thus unless I DM it, no one wants to, so I can never play as a player anymore. I modernized it to 3,5ed with skills and replaced Thac0 tables with "To Hit" tables, and converted the 5 saving throws into the same system 3,5 uses. Worked like an absolute charm and my players LOVED it too... again not enough to DM it (arrrrgh !) 3,0 was rough, too much buffing (everyone and their mom used spells to buff themselves and you had so much metagaming with that, made me sick as a DM and bored as a player). Also a level 20 dwarf fighter with 24con (20 +1 each 4 levels) now had 340hps, whereto the same dwarf with 19con in 2nd had like 190hps if not less (comparing maximums). yet the wizard's fireball still only did the same 10d6. It was pure idiocy and messed-up balance. Only 3 saving throws made it easy to get near immunity even with a "weak save number" on your class. 3.5 improved it some and it became my second best edition, I still DM in that system to this day, and enjoy playing it too. We had to smooth the rough edge with house rules that everyone agreed on (6-8ppl all agreeing on house rules? now that's perfect!), such as boosting 1min/level buff spells to 10min/level, and 1round/level summons to 1min/level (except demons/elemental lords and other B/S). No items could boost your saves (except bonus from stats) and caster level is the sum of all your magic classes (allowing for that Cleric/Mage again !). We usually work with a point buy system so nobody gets unlucky and have a crap character, or get lucky and gets a bunch of super high stats. Still the HP issues, it really gets bad after level 10, and I think I will revert to HPs from 2nd edition in my next major campaign to reign that in. 4th edition I hated, with a passion, and every one at my table gave it a try but ultimately ditched it. Had a couple nice ideas, which we poached for some of our house runes ( casting in rituals, minions, some feats, the Eladrin fey-elf... it wasn't all bad, but it felt like a computer game instead of a table-top game). 5th edition is... well... meh. It fixed my power-gaming issues from 3.0/3.5 which is a huge plus. Most spells are very poor and not worth their slot cost (let alone empowering them by using higher slots) and metamagic feats really blows. The melee classes are pretty good for the most part, so is the "Healing Cleric", and the Thief is almost overpowered. Still I can play this all night and still have fun. Not DMing it tho. Not a fan of the weak stats for character generation tho, monsters still have 24str or more for the classic ones like Ogre and Demons, but now getting over 15 is difficult and expensive as eff. But that is more to do with my DMs who are alergic to 18's and above, lol. We started houseruling this (much to my insistance), and with very very slight alterations we got a system with is far more fun (such as reverting to MP instead of slots for casters) and adding feats for extra concentration spells and not having the limit of 2-3 magic items. To each their own, I'd still rather play 3,5ed, or of course 2nd ed. That said, I can't wait to see the 6th edition. I really hope it improves the game and bring back the triple/dual classes in some form... 5th ed is very lacking in that regards, and 3.5 (non-houseruled) kinda blew as well without those endless supplement of prestige class (but we usually play with basic books only). Thanks for the video !
Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the game and your history with the various editions! While I started with B/X and am back to running it for my daughter and her friends, I spent the most total hours of time playing 3E/3.5/Pathfinder1 in a campaign that started in May 2001 and which is still on-going. I'm the DM for that one and over the past few years, I've grown disenchanted with that system as a DM. I used to *love* it and have a ton of books and supplements for it but it's become a slog to DM. If someone else wants to run it, I'd play, but once this campaign wraps, I'll never run it again. I am just not someone who enjoys system mastery (mixing-and-matching to find the perfect combination to do things) and that edition really shines for folks who *do* like that. It's just too much work to design encounters and run combats, for me. But like you said, to each their own!
@@daddyrolleda1 I definitely feel like they are fundamentally similar, but there's a lighter tone to BECMI, more heroic and less grim. I can't really pinpoint how or why that is, but I assume it's in presentation. Less Eldritch and more knight of the realm.
I wouldn't consider Unearthed Arcana 1.5 any more than I would consider material from Dragon Magazine to create a sub edition of the game. As the official house organ of D&D/AD&D, Dragon Magazine had more supplemental rules over #1-#90 than were later published in books. I also refer to the Players Optiojns and DM Options books as munchkin bait and being the end of AD&D as a playable game.
Thanks for watching and commenting. There are definitely people who would agree with your assessment of the Player's Options books for 2E. I never used them myself but I also wasn't actively playing 2E at the time, as my group had decided to switch to playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. 3E is what got me back into playing D&D and I'm still running a 3E campaign to this day that began back in May 2001. I'm also running a 1981 Moldvay Basic game for my 13yo daughter and her friends. We had our 19th session yesterday (we play on average a little less than once a month).
Dave Arneson won in the end and Gygax and him resolved it out of court with Gygax/TSR paying Arneson 2.5% Royalties crediting Gygax and Arneson as "co-creators". When TSR was acquired by WoTC, they actually had to go to Arneson and pay him an "Undisclosed amount" for his share. It is sad though in some ways. Arneson really loved TSR. After Gygax was forced out and before their Acquisition by WoTC they were floundering and Arneson wrote several letters saying he would love to come back and fox the company. Thanks for this comprehensive video!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it! I had read that about how Dave Arneson wrote to Peter Adkison at WotC in 1997 about coming back to fix D&D. It's sad that he never got to work on it again, but from what else I have read, I get the impression Dave was more of a creator and not a business person (the same could probably be said of Gary, although Gary had at least some business sense, it seems). At least WotC made efforts to put Arneson's name back in the books as a co-creator of the original version of the game. Thanks again! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
While I'm currently enjoying and running 1981 Moldvay Basic for my daughter and her friends, in terms of sheer total number of hours playing, I've played the most of 3/3.5/Pathfinder1E (I lump them all together).
This is a good explanation of the editions. The only thing missing is a mention of "The White Box Set" having room for the Chainmail rules book for those that had it and alternative rules for playing without Chainmail. Thus even at the start there was a split in the D&D community.
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it, and stay tuned for more. I think I'll perhaps do a deeper-dive into the different editions I personally own in my collection.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I made this one primarily because I run a 1981 Basic game for my 13 year-old daughter & her friends, and I was finding on Twitter that nobody had any idea what I was talking about when I said I was running B/X. I'm so glad people are enjoying and learning from it!
I started with Moldvay 1981or 1982 . Then played AD&D. I have been collecting different editions and books. It is a lot of fun. Depending on when you started will be the same or different edition,but as long as you have fun that is what really counts .
I'm sorry for the loss of your dad, but what a great gift he left you with. Yes, if you're only used to modern versions of D&D (post-2000), I suspect it would seem very wild! I'm actually running that same edition your dad gifted you (1981 Basic) for my 15yo daughter and her friends (started when they were 11) and we are having a blast!
Really good overview of the editions. :-) Keep the D&D history vids coming! Maybe cover the adventure modules, magazines, and even 3rd party stuff from back in the day. :-)
Thank you very much - I really appreciate you watching and commenting and offering suggestions! I can definitely cover modules and magazines (mostly Dragon). Thanks again!
@@KabukiKid Fantastic! Thank you so much! I'll work on some more vintage stuff soon. It is pouring here again so I've lost all my natural light and, frankly, it's too loud to record a video right now! I have a VERY cheap set-up!
It's funny to pick out the little nuances in Holmes vs the other editions. There aren't many, but there are a few and they always strike me as funny. Thanks for sharing this little tidbit!
I guess I was one of the lucky kids back then. Me and my friends had already been playing otther TSR wargames when I picked this up at the hobbyshop with my paper route money. We took to DnD pretty naturally. I still have my basic rule book. My ADnD books are prized possessions. ❤
That's great! I didn't come to it from a wargames background but I loved it immediately. So, I guess I was part of that second-wave who discovered the game through a love of fantasy literature instead of from wargames. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Enjoy the video. Thanx for getting so this together. Should you consider releasing an update to the history... 😊 The history of D&D should include reference both magazines which provided "official" material. Today, rules from "The Strategic Review" and "Dragon Magazine" might better be referred to as Beta Rules. The other item missing is the drop in quality in late 1st and 2nd Edition books. This resulted in issues with the books bindings and pages gaming of out. Pathfinder (P1) was created by the individuals (aka Paizo) who took over Dragon and Dungeon magazines during 3.5. The first edition allowed fans of 3.5 to continue using all those 📚 books with P1. I see P1 and P2 as the spiritual successors to AD&D. While 4e & 5e inherit the simplicity of the Dungeons & Dragons box sets. Even today we have an over haul of 5e to D&D-One along with P1 to PFc¹. ￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣ ¹PFc ~ PathFinder Core (aka Remastery editions)
Thank you very much for watching and commenting! For this one, I was specifically trying to *only* focus on published games by the company that published D&D (so, TSR and WotC). That's why I left out a lot of early stuff like Blackmoor, Chainmail, and the magazine stuff. I do, however, mention both The Strategic Review and Dragon in several of my videos (most notably the videos on character classes such as Clerics-Paladins-Rangers-Illusionists-Bards: th-cam.com/video/PORfiBst6HE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=FBTGJTJuF2HyA48S). And, I plan to devote specific videos to those magazines in the future! While I didn't mention the binding issues in this video (as it was focused mainly on just labeling and numbering the editions), I have mentioned it a few times including in my video on Unearthed Arcana (th-cam.com/video/zwU7bsSKQmE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=qr6ImTLgtozrlMvr). I played a lot of PF1 and agree it's a spiritual successor to 3.5 but, again, I was trying to only focus on games with Dungeons and Dragons in the name and also games by the "official" publisher of D&D. It's also why I didn't include TSR games like the Dragonlance Saga RPG, as that was not branded as a D&D game. Thanks again!
I've played every version in some form or another since 1981. I was playing "High Fantasy" in 1980, and was invited to a homebrew OD&D game. With my Brother and other family, played both B and X, and AD&D, of which 1st Ed is my favorite to this day. I was sorely disappointed with 2nd Edition when Monks were dropped. Played that on occasion while I was enlisted in the Marine Corps. I started my own kids with 3rd Edition, 3.5, and 4e. I've also played and collected many other TTRPGs over the years, but return to D&D. Likely going back to 1st Edition AD&D since I really don't like 5e very much. Thanks for this video.
Thank you for watching, and commenting, and sharing you story! I started with B/X in 1981 and we quickly incorporated many ideas from AD&D without realizing at the time that they were technically two separate games with mechanics that don't always match. I collected some 2E stuff but never really played it, and I, too, was disappointed by the stuff they removed, such as Monks, but also the new classes that had debuted in Unearthed Arcana like Barbarians, Cavaliers, and Thief-Acrobats. I was hoping for *more* classes in 2E, not fewer. I got back into D&D with 3E and I still run a 3.X/Pathfinder1E campaign to this day that began back in May 2001. But once that's done, I don't see myself ever running that system again. I played a bit of 4E and 5E but my main games these days are spent with Savage Worlds as a player and back to my roots running a 1981 B/X game for my 13 year-old daughter and her friends (we have a session planned for tomorrow - they're going through the Keep on the Borderlands and are planning to investigate Cave K!). Thanks again - I hope you stick around and find other videos you enjoy. Cheers!
I think I may be one of the few people that enjoyed 4e. It felt like everyone got more tactical options than just swing a sword or shoot a bow for fighters. Recently I've become disenchanted with 5e. It feels too unbalanced, making it almost impossible to challenge a party beyond 3rd or fourth level. I'm currently working on learning the current version of Pathfinder to see if that can work better.
4E had a lot of fans and I had fun the couple of times I played it. I think it would have fared a lot better had it been marketed as a D&D Tactical Wargame versus the "new" edition of D&D. It was just too different from what had come before and I think it caused a lot of folks to dismiss it even though it did have some really neat elements to it.
More like Daddy rolled a natural 20! I'm commenting here, but I'm four videos into your history series. I thank the TH-cam algorithm Gods for putting a video of yours in my feed. After seeing the topics you covered, I immediately subscribed and will happily be watching all of your videos. I played my first game of AD&D in 1982 and have been hooked ever since. You and I seem to be in a similar situation, as my son discovered my role-playing games collection a couple of years ago, so I dusted off my dungeon master chops and started running a game for him solo which has now grown to him and four of his friends. In fact, I'll be running my first game of Top Secret in 30 years for them soon. Anyway, I'm loving your content, and I hope you have the best of luck with your channel. Keep the great videos coming.
This is such a great comment - I appreciate it so much! Thank you for your support in subscribing, and I'm also very glad my content got recommended to you! I have no idea how that works and why certain videos get recommended more than others. So very cool you're playing D&D and other TTRPGs with your son and his friends! I've found it's a fun way to stay connected and do stuff with my daughter as she grows older and we have fewer things in common. And, while she's not expressed this thought directly, I do think she appreciates that I take time to make this game for her and coordinate a time for her to play with her friends, and then they get to all hang out after the game as well. Thanks again! I look forward to chatting with you more in the comments in the future!
I grew up with BECMI, though a friend had the Expert rules from the previous version. The thing I didn't like about higher level play with this version was that it was all about establishing strongholds, which didn't interest me at all.
Yes, at the dawn of the hobby (especially for the original game and for the Holmes/Moldvay/Mentzer "Basic" versions that followed), domain level play was the goal of most characters. You reached "name level" and were able to build some kind of stronghold/temple/guild and attract followers to staff it for you. The thought was that most players would retire their PCs at that point and start over with new ones. It was kind of the "goal" of the game, but as more and more people entered the hobby without a wargaming background and a desire to manage a domain or "win" the game, the goals shifted. I've not gamed with anybody who wanted to retire their PC after building a stronghold! Thank you for watching and commenting!
It’s funny I have a copy of Men and Magic and my family kept on disputing with me that it was not from the the OG D&D. Although the cover of mine looks a bit different so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
The cover was changed! The original cover featured a knight type character on a horse, but that was actually a copied drawing of the "Black Knight" character from a "Doctor Strange" comic! It was very common in early D&D for much of the art to be copies/tracings of comic book art. Once that was discovered, the cover was changed to the more familiar version you see in the copy I have. If it says "Men & Magic" and it's a brown digest size booklet, it's definitely from D&D! And if you have the mounted warrior on the horse, you have one of the earliest (and most valuable) printings!
My friends had AD&D2, but the first books I bought were AD&D2 Revised, with a barbarian breaking down a door on the cover. Is that actually any different, or was it just a reprint to make more money?
The revised covers for 2E were similar to the revised covers for 1E - just new cover art but same interior contents. A few people have mentioned I didn't include them, and in hindsight I should've at least mentioned them, but to me, they aren't separate editions since the content is the same. Whether it was just an attempt to make more money is difficult to say. I know the reasoning behind the 1E revised covers (to create a more coherent branding as well as avoid the idol on the PHB and the red Efreet on the DMG which many people thought was a devil or demon - this was during Satanic Panic). But as for 2E, that wasn't really an issue. I guess it was just a "refresh." Thanks for watching and commenting!
I'm back to running a 1981 B/X game for my 13yo daughter & her friends, but I incorporate stuff from 1E & 2E as well. Thank you so much for watching & commenting!
For some reason the Mentzer editions never appealed to me. I can't explain why, it's basically the same rules, but something about the Moldvay/Cook editions seemed much better to me.
I feel (and felt) the same, but partially it's because by the time the Mentzer editions came out, my group had moved more toward AD&D and I felt I didn't need another "Basic" set. However, I also feel the aesthetics of Moldvay/Cook/Marsh adhere closer to both the original game and to the first five AD&D hardbacks. The Mentzer edition definitely feels more "corporate" to me in terms of presentation and layout. I do love the Elmore art and that Red Box cover is iconic, but I noticed even back then that it was a shift in tone. The Holmes and Moldvay covers show a party of adventurers (Moldvay is only two, but still...) and the AD&D Player's Handbook also shows an adventuring party compete with equipment, maps, etc. The Mentzer cover shows a *hero* (not an adventurer) facing down a dragon in single combat for glory and fame. It begins to present the game in a different style, and while I'm sure he didn't intend that (the original Elmore cover *did* feature an adventuring party but the decision was made to revise it to focus only one the single warrior hero) it is interesting to me that this also came at a time with a shift in the style of play of the game that continues to this day.
80s BECMI/1e AD&D kid here - have love 'Basic D&D' for so long. Can't get enough of the Rules Cyclopedia (even mine is only a PoD H/C). I also love 2e AD&D - this history is great. I've seen so many online but this one doesn't linger too long. I like hearing yours (others)experiences with older editions of the game pre-WOTC 3.0/3.5 ed.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! I was really trying to get through the whole history in 20 minutes or less and I just about made it! I do feel it was a bit rushed at the end, but as you said, I was trying not to linger too long. I'm so glad you appreciate my approach. I started with Moldvay, so just slightly before you, and we immediately mixed it with 1E because we didn't know we weren't supposed to. But I've played a *ton* of 3E/3.5 and am still running a campaign for that system that I started back in May 2001. Thanks again!
Yes, I think $10 sounds about right. I know the original Boxed Set of the three little brown books was also $10.00. I started a little after you with the Moldvay Basic set, but I was lucky to have other kids teach me the game. Of course years later, I discovered we weren't playing it correctly!
I know very much how you feel. I've kept many things that others would've long ago discarded, but they always bring a smile to my face when I come across them after a few years of not having looked at them. I kept my original copy of Greyhawk: Supplement I even though a friend had tried to hole-punch it, poorly, TWICE, so there were un-aligned holes throughout the book and the cover was loose. But I've had that book for about 40 years. I only recently gave it away as part of my 2,500 Subscribers Giveaway. It's a reader's copy (not a collector's copy) and I know someone else out there who has never read it will enjoy it. There was no reason at this point to hold onto it, especially since I'd replaced it with a non-damaged copy nearly 20 years ago. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Interestingly, TSR indicated that "Gods, Demigods & Heroes" was the "last" D&D supplement, and Swords & Spells was published after that. While it's informally referred to as "Supplement V" it doesn't actually say it's a supplement on the cover (although I recognize it says it's "For Use With Dungeons & Dragons"). Even the intro to Gods, Demigods & Heroes states that it's the last supplement for D&D. Ultimately, to me, Swords & Spells is miniatures wargames rules to use with D&D, but unlike the other previous supplements, doesn't add or expand on any rules in D&D that are still used today, so I left it off my list. All that said, that's just my definition and if someone wants to include "Swords & Spells" as part of the so-called "0.5 Edition," I wouldn't try to say they are wrong! I really appreciate you watching and commenting!
3.5e definitely my favorite edition. When 4e came out, Paizo made Pathfinder, (or D&D 3.75e) which made it even better. I have friends that love 2e though, saying there is too much math in 3e/3.5e/and Pathfinder. I just couldn't stomach the chaos of the earlier editions anymore after experiencing the elegance and depth of 3e+.
Although I started playing back in 1981 with Moldvay Basic, in terms of sheer numbers of hours played, I've played more of 3E/3.5/PF1E than any other edition. I started a 3E campaign in May 2001 that's still running today (using PF) but when it wraps, I don't intend to ever run that system again. I'd play it if someone else ran it, but I find I don't enjoy running high-level 3.x games. I also played in a ~12 year 3E/3.5 game and we also dabbled in D20 Modern (specifically the D20 Cthulhu game). I appreciate that I get *how* the math works in 3.X but as time has gone on, I find that I'm much more nimble and flexible at running a system like B/X, which is what I'm using now for my daughter's campaign. I do have a *TON* of 3.X stuff, both WotC and 3rd Party, and I use a lot of the idea, stripped of the mechanics, in that game as well. Thanks again for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
2.5 Edition was awsome! Edit: I have a ton of experience with it. The biggest things 2.5 did was let you build your own race and class. You picked a regular race and class and had points to select race abilities and points to pick your class abilities. You could take abilities (drawbacks) that were worth negative points to gain more points. Any unspent points could be used to buy or increase proficiencies (which also cost points to buy). By default, if you took the regular version of races and classes, you wouldn't have an extra points. This makes it completely compatible with non-Skills and Powers characters. The big thing is customizing your character. You could buy the ability for the wizard to cast in armor. A Cleric could buy improve weapon proficiencies like swords. You could pay for this by giving up access to certain spell schools / circles or limiting your armor or taking behavioral restrictions like a Paladin. It let you swap out features you didn't want or weren't going to use for features you wanted and were going to use. The other big thing in S&P is sub- ability scores. Each stat had two sub abilities that by default were the same as you primarily ability score. Each sub ability was tied to a part of the ability. Dex had one part tied to Range Attack bonus and another tied to AC bonus. You could raise one by lowering the other up to 2 point. So, instead of Dex 14, you could have Dex 12 for Ranged Attacks and a Dex 16 for AC. This was by far the most broken part of S&P since in practice every character just got +2 to basically every stat by eschewing the other half of the stat's use. Coupled with the custom races and classes, S&P characters were much more optimized and powerful. In my opinion, these easily added a level or more raw power to characters built with the default points expenditures. Needless to say, old skool players often found S&P to be too gamey and too powerful meant for munchkins and power gamers. Like all additional options, you didn't have to power game it. You could simply use it to buy what your concept was going to actually use and be instead of whatever narrow tired trope an author wrote. It was great.
That is probably the edition with which I have the least experience! I collected a lot of the "base" 2E books, but by the time the Player's Option series stuff came out, my group had moved to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and I'd stopped playing for a few years while I finished college and started my career. I came back hard with 3E but, although I was aware of it from articles in Dragon magazine, I basically missed 2.5. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Thanks for all that added detail! That really helps explain the system. I always struggle with drawbacks like the "behavioral restrictions" of a Paladin, as I find more often than not they get ignored or forgotten by the player and the DM, and you end up with a PC that got extra benefits for no drawbacks. Many of the 2E kits were built this way and I recall it's one of the reasons a lot of folks didn't like them.
This is awesome. Highly informative. A cool sequel video to this would be the retroclones (those that attempt to most closely match a version) that now exist out there and which version they are most closely trying to mimic.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! I can definitely make a video on retroclones and what edition each one is trying to emulate! Great idea - thanks! I will add it to the queue. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 I have been following the OSR and there are a huge number of home brew rule sets available, very few are what I would call a clone of a specific edition. Old School Essentials being the only one I would truly call a clone. The rest I would say are "inspired by" certain editions. Such as OSRIC being inspired by 1st edition and Gold & Glory being inspired by 2nd edition.
This is by-and-large true. The only "exact" clone that I'm aware of, as you point out, is Old School Essentials for B/X. But the term "retro-clone" has been used long enough in the OSR Community that most folks have at least a vague idea that if you use that term a game like OSRIC is a retro-clone of AD&D 1E, Labyrinth Lord is a retro-clone of B/X, and Swords & Wizardry (at least, *some* of its iterations - they are a lot!) is a retro-clone of OD&D White Box. Then you've got games that are inspired by some of those editions but are a step or two removed, such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess being inspired by, and sharing a lot of mechanics with, B/X, but going in its own direction (most notably with the Specialist class replacing the Thief and the X-in-6 skills, but that's just one example).
My group started with 2nd Edition AD&D and continued until the series was bought by WotC. By that time, I had about a 2 foot stack of AD&D books. I remember those books as being very poorly made, they started coming apart almost immediately.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! That poor binding began back in the 1E era, at least for a few of the books. My Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures books (1985) both have loose pages in them, while my Player's Handbook, Deities and Demigods, Fiend Folio, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide, all of which pre-date those two books, are holding together fine. They definitely took a cheap route. 2E was also famous for reusing art that had appeared in other books. I don't think the main core rule books reused art, but the soft-cover Complete Guides definitely did!
Oh wow... that's a difficult question to answer because there are quite a few different printings of that, and of course the later printings are not *quite* as expensive as the earlier ones (even though the content is almost all the same). But that said, over the past ~10 years, the prices for any out-of-print D&D stuff has skyrocketed. Your best bet is Ebay to try to get a deal, but I would check places like Noble Knight Games, Wayne's Books, and DEI Dungeon on the Internet, to see how they are pricing them. Also check Acaeum to see which printing you're looking for. My box is sadly what's known as a "Frankenstein." You can see it most clearly in my most recent video on Firearms, where I hold up the three little books, and you can see the middle one is a different shade of tan as the other 2. My mom got me this box as a gift from my local game store back in the late 90's or early 2000's, but it was missing Book 2: Monsters & Treasure, so later, the store tracked me down a separate copy, but it's a different printing from Book 1 and Book 3 in that set. All that said... You're probably looking at ~$500, and earlier printing and/or better quality (very fine+ or Near Mint) can get close to $1000. But, there are deals. I just saw one where the asking price was only $200 and it sold for an undisclosed offer (which presumedly was less).
I was very lucky to get my White Box. I can't remember if I mentioned it in the video, but I first discovered Original D&D at a friend's house about 2-3 years after I was introduced to Moldvay B/X. He had a really janky beat up copy of Greyhawk: Supplement I that he didn't want any more, so he gave it to me. And then a few weeks later, I saw a near-mint copy of Blackmoor: Supplement II at my local hobby store, for cover price of $5.00. I had those for nearly 15 years before my mom gave me a White Box as a Birthday Gift. She'd gone to my local game store, and asked them what a good gift idea would be for me. They had just got this copy of the White Box in and they knew I'd like it. Years later, I got Eldritch Wizardry and Gods, Demigods, and Heroes, just to complete the set. I'm not sure if my mom hadn't bought it for me way back then if I'd ever had gotten a copy.
Those original rule books were letter sized paper folded in half. A copier and a stapler let you produce a book. (Not sure if they were copier or print machine produced though). Man, so many of those things I had back in the day - but I let them slip out of my hands over the years as I kept 'up-dating' and moving around.
Ah yes, you're right about the size! I should've been more clear in my description. Thanks! And thanks for watching and commenting! Sorry you lost your books... that's tough.
Played 3.5 with the neighbourhood kids in the late 2000's/early 2010's. My mom ended up getting me 4th edition and it seemed so strange to us that we just kept playing 3.5! This help put my timeline in perspective. Love the content
I'm glad it helped, and I really appreciate you watching and commenting! Yes, the transition from 3.5 to 4E is probably the most drastic in the history of edition changes for the game.
That's right! I had completely forgotten! My 3E books have been out in the garage since around the time 3.5 came out, as I was out of shelf-space, but I recently brought them back inside due to making all these videos. I just double-checked and my 3E Player's Handbook still has the CD on the inside back cover. I don't think I ever even took it out!
I started on the red box basic D&D, had the rules cyclopedia (still regret selling that) and still have my 2nd edition books. Looking to get back in, I think i'll grab me an updated set of rulebooks. Exciting.
I had not realized until now that there were 3 different versions of "Basic" floating around over the 10+ year period! Good information on that! Also it is quite humorous to me to hear people talk about 1e AD&D as being 'easy to understand' or 'rules-light' / lmao!!! After 40 years of DM'ing it I still find stuff out that I don't know (or, more recently, have forgotten!). Keep up the good work, this helps our kids & grandkids understand a little better how the hobby developed/grew in our old 'real time' selves' lives! One topic folks (even my age) are shakey on is what collections of magazines there are which are now archived, free to use (providing you're not making money off them), and where they're available at! Dragon, Dungeon, "And" magazine, and others are all excellent resources that can be used for ALL editions, and SHOULD be used for years to come! You might want to do a shortie on those resources & where to find them . J
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I definitely think Advanced D&D is pretty complicated. It doesn't have feats and skills (unless you use Non-Weapon Proficiencies from later-era 1E) but it compensates with obscure rules like Weapon Speed Factors and Weapons vs AC tables. We *never* used that stuff back in the day! Too complicated! I love Dragon magazine and began subscribing with issue #90 and kept that subscription up until the last print issue, #359. And I have maybe 30-40 issues prior to #90 that I purchased off the shelf. I'll definitely cover Dragon in a future video. And yes, there were a ton of other magazines and zines at the dawn of the hobby. I'll look into putting that all together. Thanks!
I was really into advanced D&D back in 1985-1987. But my oldest cousin who acted as "DM" began to play fewer and fewer campaigns as were getting into high school, and then we just stopped :( At the peak of our playing I really enjoyed reading the modules we'd get at The Rusty Scabbard (store in Lexington, KY) and learning about what I could possibly get on my adventure, lol. There was even a 2-day period (over a weekend) where my youngest cousin and I stayed up for almost TWO DAY STRAIGHT playing D&D and trying to make our own "monster manual" :D EDIT: The last character I ever had was a 31st level Fighter/Magic User/Thief combo.
31st level?!?!?! Impressive! I never really played high-level games with my DMs back in the day, and even currently the highest I've gone is 20th. I never played Epic Level, etc. Thank you so much for sharing your early memories of playing the game. I always love hearing other peoples' stories!
This is all so interesting! As someone who had only experience with ADnD through computer games, what with living in non-Western country and all, I saw some games that claimed to be DnD and having "race as class", yes, and some games being "ADnD" and being other way around... So, I believed that basically "race-as-class" DnD was simply the Old DnD, before "Advanced", and THEN it was improved upon. I could not even guessed then that there is such a convoluted and tragic story, with Gary going all chaotic evil (or is it neutral evil?) on royalties and pushing Dave out of profits on what they created together, and creating parallel branches of the same game for this reason. (I think it's rather chaotic evil, because blatant lies about ADnD having no relation to DnD is an act of lying, which is chaotic, and being so selfish is inherently evil, with evil being defined "caring for your own self-interest to the detriment of others". But in any case, it's chaotic evil "act", not the claim that of such a disposition was "the person" himself, on a permanent basis.)
@@daddyrolleda1I'm very glad too, your channel is a veritable treasure trove of "archeological" information about DnD. I don't know, maybe because of computer RPGs, but I've always been fascinated by old DnD editions, 2nd and the like, even when DnD has already arrived to where I live and it was 3.5 edition already, so that's what everyone was playing. But I still wondered - "who is Mordenkainen or Bigby? Where are they from? Are they friends to Khelben and Elminster or not?". It is a bit like mystery novel or a fairy tale, when you feel that the world contains more mysterious things than what is shown to you. Thanks to your channel, I get to know all of that! I also like QuestingBeast channel, he dives a lot into this old DnD stuff, too.
That would be amazing! I bet the type would be really small so it's difficult to read, and then the creator would forget to put any attribution on the first attempt he made so folks post it without realizing who created it! 😀
I'd love to know how many copies of M & I were sold and how many groups actually played them. I've never seen either in the wild and never met anyone who played them. Seems like B, E, and C to a lesser extent, covered pretty much 99.9% of groups' needs as far as playing "Basic" went. We used B & E quite a lot and C a little bit now and then.
Yes, I don't get the impression that many folks played past 25th level (Companion) but I have "met" a few folks on Twitter who went all the way to Immortal status and I've chatted with them about their games. But I don't think it was very common! When they revised that edition into the Rules Cyclopedia, they eliminated the Immortals rules from it, and I think that might have been just because they weren't as popular. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 There's a noticeable tone shift in the Masters and Immortals box sets where it seems to shift from being a game about a group of characters and more about individual characters. I never played a group campaign past Companion, but played several long-running 1-on-1 games with my best friend where we'd DM for each other's high level solo characters up to and including Immortal. I've no idea if that was common, but the writing of the box sets made it seem a very natural progression.
Hi, I have the Dungeon & Dragons 3 volume set shown in the video with 3 books and in the box there is also a reference sheet that I didn't see in the video, as well as a poster and an invoice for when it was purchased. However, I would like to know how much it is worth? Can you help me? Because it is 5 pounds it was in a store and I bought it.
Hello there! I have the reference sheets in my box and I show them in another video (I forget which one off the top of my head) but they were definitely part of the original box. As far as a poster, I'm not aware of any boxed set of the original game that included a poster inside. What's the poster look like? If you can describe it, that might help. As far as what it's worth, if you have a White Box (like mine) that says "Original Collector's Edition" and the books inside are all intact and in good shape AND all belong to the same printing (that is, unlike my box which is a "Frankenstein" version because my Vol. I and Volume III are different printings from my Volume II) then it could be worth several hundreds of dollars. The Dragon Trove is selling a White Box right now for $900 and there's at least one on Ebay for $750. I would suggest checking with Acaeum to see which version you have: www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/original.html Hope that helps!
@@daddyrolleda1 thank you for the answer, I looked at what you sent, there is also the one with a magician in a white box and the collector's edition is on it, there are 5 things in it, 3 booklets and the 4th is the reference sheet and also the poster, I think, which is folded in half, which has something on both sides, one on one side, a dragon's head on the other side advertises a different game, is it possible that this was only for the collector's edition? However, the invoice also includes when and where it was purchased.
My two favorite editions are the two extremely different ones. I live BECMI for its simplicity and exploration and I love 4e for its tactical combat and build crafting. Both are excellent and appeal to different gaming desires/interests that I have.
I like that you can appreciate each edition for what they are and how they work. I think 4E gets a bad rap and also believe it would've performed much better in the market if it had been offered as a tactical war game instead of labeled as "D&D." There's an expectation of what D&D is/does and 4E didn't really deliver that, but what it *did* do, it was good at. Thank you for watching and commenting!
That was probably the most "popular" (in terms of sales) Basic edition! I never got it since I already had Moldvay and had "moved on" to AD&D to by the time it came out, but I've met so many people for whom that was their introduction to D&D.
The 3.0 Edition PHB was written by Johnathan Tweet who co-authored the Ars Magica game with Mark Rein*Hagen (the later creator of Vampire the Masquerade). The core Mechanic of 3.0 and all future editions is the Ars Magica mechanic, except using a Characteristic + Ability + 1d10 roll against an Ease Factor set by the Storyguide. Characteristics are the Ability Scores of Ars Magica and ranged from -5 to +5 (instead of 3 to 18). The abilities (Skills) for 3.0 were a mixture of 2nd Edition and Ars Magica lists, some of which were lifted word for word from AM 3rd Edition. And the "iconic" Rage ability of Barbarian (which did not exist in Unearthed Arcana/Oriental Adventures) was a +1 Physical Virtue called "Berserk" in which you gained a "+2 on Damage, Soak, and Fatigue scores, but suffer a -2 penalty on Defense." And the Reputation system inspired the same system in Star Wars d20/Modern d20. I have argued with OSR people before because tI've heard a few people say that the ability bonus feature came from D&D, which I will admit would have been an inspiration to make 1st/2nd AD&D bonus more accessible, but that ultimately Tweet chose his AM system instead.
I love 4e, it is actually my favorite version of D&D by narrowly edging out the Rules Cyclopedia. Also, in response to the "Pathfinder outsold 4e" comment, yes, it did for a brief window of time when WotC had stopped production of 4e and was working on D&D Next (which evolved into 5e). There are some people who had worked at both WotC and Paizo who have come forward saying that, based on the sales reports they were seeing, at no time while 4e was in active production did Pathfinder outsell 4e (it did do incredibly well, no hate on Pathfinder here since I also love that edition). Pathfinder's entry into the market was also very controversial and they almost got sued for using advertising that very clearly billed itself as just a continuation of 3.5 but they did drop that specific line fairly quickly.
Thanks so much for watching and commenting! I appreciate it. I've had fun playing pretty much all editions of D&D (I have yet to actually play OD&D, Holmes, or 2E) and while I never ran or played in a campaign with 4E, I did play in a few one-shots and had a great time. I think ultimately it was just *too* different and folks weren't ready for that, especially after 3E opened the doors for 3rd party publishers to create content. I have thousands of dollars worth of 3.X stuff that wasn't really usable with 4E and I wasn't ready to let that investment go, so I made the switch to Pathfinder since it was all largely compatible. Thanks for your insider info on sales - it was reported so much in the press that Pathfinder was outselling 4E and I didn't realize that didn't happen until WotC had moved to work on D&D Next and stopped actively promoting 4E. That's really interesting! Cheers!
I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of 4e, it's probably my most played edition since I got years of weekly games out of it with my brother and High School Friends. Granted, after I discovered Retroclones (Let alone WotC putting up PDFs of older editions, often for cheap) and the world discovered 5e (No hate on 5e, I like it...mostly...it's just difficult to get a group together for BECMI or 1e...), I fear 4e is just going to be a Character-focused miniatures-skirmish game for me...but I still like the edition.
@@SwordlordRoy I think whatever edition one starts with is bound to instill a sense of nostalgia but also, there's no denying it's fun because it's your first! It's a new world of fun to explore. 4E has a lot of ardent fans and I think if it had tried to embrace what it was doing instead of trying to position it as just "another edition of D&D" it could've been a lot more successful.
@@daddyrolleda1 I fear 3.5 was my first edition, with 3.0 being the first I ran...experience was poor for the most part, the edition wasn't conducive to self-teaching, and the only truly experienced player we had was more interested in exploiting the newbie DM than helping.
@@SwordlordRoy Oh no! I'm sorry you had a bad experience at your first outing with the hobby. 3.X is very complex, as you well know by now, and I can see it being difficult to learn especially if you have no familiarity with TTRPGs and are trying to learn solely from reading the book. And, it is also very conducive for players who strive for "system mastery" vs just enjoying the game. I have never played that way, but I know a lot of folks who enjoy being able to exploit loopholes to create characters that are ultra-powerful. I have a player like that in the 3.5 game I'm currently still running (started with 3E back in May 2001 and the campaign is still going). He loves being able to combine race-class-feats-magic in ways I as the DM would never think of, so that few things challenge him. I find it frustrating, but it's how he derives enjoyment from the game.
Indeed! Quite risque for the time and the only cover they did like this, as far as I remember. I know there was nudity in the interior art of the Monster Manual but that went away pretty quickly and later books didn't have that. I can't post the image here, but in Appendix N, Gary Gygax mentions "Dwellers in the Mirage" by A. Merritt as an inspirational book. Take a look at this cover: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwellers_in_the_Mirage
I was very lucky to discovered some of those early supplements back in the early 80's when they were much more readily available and without a huge mark-up. I bought my Blackmoor supplement around 1983 or 1984 right off the shelf at my game store for cover price of $5.00. That copy of Eldritch Wizardry originally belonged to a friend back then who didn't want it any more. Thanks for watching and commenting! I hope you continue to enjoy the channel.
I like to use race as class in AD&D if someone wants to play something off the wall or weird. One time I made up a baboon class as a joke. Someone said that a baboon would be smarter than someone with a 3 Int so I went for it lol. I used it as a NPC. This way you don't have to come up with everything for a creature can it be a thief? Can it be a wizard? just give it set skills and an XP chart and you are good to go
Wonderful. Thank you so much I would love to hear you speak about all of the little details with the rules between each editions. I know, that would be quite the undertaking. But generally speaking, you know, the big stuff. Maybe not even all in one video but moving from edition to edition. Anyway, loved hearing what you had to say 😊
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel! I will definitely add this to a "potential future topics" video - you're not the first to ask!
@@daddyrolleda1 haha glad I am not the only one. Definitely enjoying all of what you have done thus far. Will be supporting you from here on out. Thank you for your work!
Holmes Basic is my favorite in terms of scope and presentation (I think a level cap of 3 is pretty reasonable), 2nd Edition's conscious _dropping_ of Barbarians, Monks, and Assassins from the main book was all positive in my book and wish they'd dropped Druids while they were at it and prefer not having Demons and Devils explicitly called such if they're going to differ from real world Christian theology. 5e is probably my favorite in terms of overall mechanics, so finding a way to crunch that into Holmes Basic's scope would be my ideal.
Thank you so much for sharing your TTRPG journey and commenting on the different editions! I love these kinds of comments because I find it interesting to know how other people view the different editions and what their pros and cons are. I'm still of the mind that a barbarian doesn't really need to be a separate class. It's just a fighter, but roleplayed differently. The one thing that does give me pause, though, is the armor issue. One of a fighter's main class features is being able to use all heavy armor, and barbarians don't typically wear that kind of armor, so making a conscious choice not to use one of your only class features is a bit of a difficult pill to swallow. I do think that they could be handled more like the 2E Kits or 5E Backgrounds, though. A Fighter type with a selection of Kits: Knight, Barbarian, Soldier, etc. could work. I currently run B/X but I use a lot of stuff from other editions (like Kits, which I call "Class Concepts" - there are a bunch of my blog, but at that time I was calling them "Subclasses"), Advantage/Disadvantage, and I do sometimes incorporate standard "modern" D20 checks versus the old-school roll-under ability checks. Like you said, taking stuff and adding it to older editions. Thanks again!
@@daddyrolleda1 The armor issue is of course not a conceptual issue for Conan himself (who wore armor of various types in the books) or just a more coherent system for how damage, Dexterity bonuses, and armor interact. Like if heavy armor was _generally_ a bigger net positive, most warriors would opt for it but if there was a risk/reward to it (_taking_ more damage when not armored but it being easier to dodge, or your Movement in combat being higher without armor, or even having bonuses on your attack rolls) as various other games have experimented with over the decades, that could be a system-wide feature that Fighters are simply better at taking advantage of. My opinion of the Monk is that "martial artist" as an archetype is _also_ just a flavor of Fighter, but one that focuses less on equipment and more on technique. Basically, the Fighter would be the base class and Barbarian and Monk would be subclasses much like the Champion, Eldritch Knight, and Battlemaster.
as someone from Germany this history of D&D is kinda interesting since over here D&D wasn't that successful or big. Yes the red box i guess some other boxes after that were translated and some adventures but since TSR wanted a higher license payment from Schmidt Spiele (THE biggest board game producer/publisher at that time) Schmidt spiele made a bold move by telling "well we not paying and we will make a game that surpasses yours". So the translators of the game (Ulrich Kiesow and Werner Fuchs and some others) had to quickly made a new Roleplaying System just in time for the Nürnberger Toy Fair in 1984 so they had roughly a month for the rules to be completly different as from D&D. They called it DAS SCHWARZE AUGE / The Dark eye and made the usual boxes and had several adventures for groups and solo adventures ready when the game launched. In a move only Schmidt Spiele could do they kinda forced the stores to stock Das Schwarze Auge or they will not get any boardgames froM Schmidt Spiele and other stuff from them. So you basically found the box in EVERY toy store or ANY store which had some stuff from Schmidt Spiele. Das Schwarze Auge wasn't the first german RPG on the market but the most successful meaning that for most players around the 80s and even mid 90s RPG was "playing Das schwarze Auge". The D&D Editions were translated but... not as wide spread. Meaning you only found them in special gaming stores. For example i never saw the D&D 3 Books anywere in my region (only in larger cities in special gaming stores) but you could find the 3rd Edition base Box of Das Schwarze Auge almost everywhere together with other expansion boxes and a FULL range of adventures (and yeah DSA has PLENTY of them). That changed with 5e though since the rules for DSA got more detailed and complicated starting from DSA 4 onwards....which is good if you like a detailed system were you potentially can create THE character and have several fighting manveuvers and stuff.... but is also clunky.
Thank you so much for sharing this info! I know next to nothing about non-USA RPGs, so this information was all new to me. Thank you! I appreciate you sharing your experiences. And thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 my pleasure :-) My first real contact with the (ADnD) rules was with Baldurs Gate and the Diablo 2 boardgame (ans I didn't like the rules tbh) from 3rd edition I didn't get anything. Even the conventions I visited didn't offer any DND play rounds only Das schwarze Auge especially during 4th edition (around 2004) it was HUGE That changed now since 5e is so popular so more players get into RPGs with DND and not with DSA
Been enjoying these history vids quite a bit. So many things I did not know about the game. It's nice to have more insight on the reasons behind all the various versions. Quick question that you might have an answer for. I have a copy of the D&D basic box set (normally has a 1001 in upper right corner of the cover). I think the copy I have is a very early version as it has F115-R in the upper right corner of the box instead, even though the rest of the box looks the same. It came with some odd stuff besides the 2001 rulebook and B1 adventure. Tiny metal mini's, dice, dungeon geomorphs, maybe more that are not in the box anymore. Anyway, was wondering if you had heard of/seen such a box? I got this from a relative that worked at the place where they were printed, along with a lot of the other stuff back in the late 70's/early 80's.
Did a little searching, looks like f115-R is first printing. Source did not tell how many were printed though. Anyways, good to know. I could send you an image of the box if you ever want to put it in a video.
Yes, I'd love a picture! Thank you! Based on my understanding, your box (at least, if not also the rest of the contents) is either a "True First" print or a "First Printing" partially based on the F115-R numbering on the box. You can tell the differences between those two versions by the bottom of the box - the "True First" bottom is just white, whereas the First Printing lists the contents. Both of those printings also would have had "Dungeon Geomorphs Set 1" and "Monsters & Treasure Assortment Set 1" and both would have been first printings. However, if your rulebook has a "2001" code on it, then that's a 2nd or later printing of the rulebook but put inside a True First or First Printing box. Some will have a Lizard Logo and say "Second Print, Jan 1978" on the inside cover, while others will say "Third Print, May 1978". Still others will have a Wizard Logo and say "Second Edition, Nov 1978" or "Third Edition, Dec 1979." Interestingly, if you *also* have a copy of B1: In Search of the Unknown, that was likely added later, as that adventure wasn't included with the boxed set until the 4th Printing, at which point it replaced the Dungeon Geomorphs and the Monster & Treasure Assortment. Based on all this, it sounds like you have what some industry folks would call a "Frankenstein Version" as it includes contents from different printings in the same box. My Original D&D "White Box" is the same way - my Monsters & Treasure assortment is a different printing from "Men & Magic" and "Wilderness & Underwater Adventures."
@@daddyrolleda1 I need to find the original rules insert that came in the box. I have a 2001 one I picked up on ebay in there for now. My brother might have that, but if so he might have thrown it away a long time ago. What you say about the "Monsters and Treasure Assortment" is true as well, I have it but am not 100% certain that it came in the box. Lastly, sadly the bottom of the box is not white, it has printing on it. If I do find that rules insert I hope it has Hobbits in it, but sounds like probably not. Not certain how to post images on you tube, but will gladly send you a picture of the box. I guess it is possible that my relative who worked where they were printed just cobbled together a box from spare parts as well. Update: the bottom of the box seems to show what is in it: dice (picture does not match the set I have), rulebook (which in the image says F115-R), Monster and treasure assortment, and the geomorphs. Going to check my dice pile to see if I can find the originals. The ones I thought came with it are a pasty light blue color. Anyway, thanks again. Final update: found your email and images have been sent. Have a good one.
19:08 I have to correct you here, it does not say 3rd Edition. WotC never called it that, he community did. We were saying 3rd edition as soon as rumors of new edition being in the works started. This is entirely due to AD&D 2nd Edition, which we just called 2nd edition. As you should know. The real reason for dropping the Advanced appellation is that WotC had finally settled the decades old legal battle with Dave Arneson over royalties for D&D, so there was no longer a need to maintain the pretext that AD&D was a different game and just use Dungeons and Dragons (better for a number of reasons).
All good points. Thanks for sharing them. As I was making the video I was looking at the 3E Player's Handbook and noticed it didn't say the edition on the cover and I wondered if I was misremembering. I was playing at the time (I worked on the advertising for Wizards of the Coast during the 3E era and we all referred to it internally at 3E) but I actually didn't realize that the 3E name was one "created" by the community. That's a cool piece of trivia.
@@daddyrolleda1 I don't know if the community created it, per se, but anyone playing D&D would have thought of it that way. I think it's safe to say Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D Third Edition News site was the nexus of it. The reason the revision was actually named 3.5 was because the periodicals team was using it for their coverage and it stuck and became official. All of the edition numbers people throw around now revolve around AD&D 2nd ed and it would be all but impossible to get people to change. The only likely to work is if WotC named the next edition 7th and referred to previous editions based on that.
@@Welverin I was a huge fan of EN World and spent many hours at "work" reading and commenting on the message boards there. It was a primary reason for me getting more involved in the hobby and for "meeting" (virtually) Matt Sprange from Mongoose Publishing and him agreeing to publish my "Quintessential Aristocrat" book. And, yes, I'm aware that with the creation of Advanced D&D: 2nd Edition, then the official numbering of 3.5, 4th, and 5th, that the numbering is "off" which was one of the reasons for me creating this video. Another reason is that I'm currently running a Moldvay Basic game (aka "B/X") for my 13yo daughter and her friends, and when I write about it on Twitter, I constantly have to write out that entire phrase (I can't just say "Basic D&D" or "1981 Basic"), and even writing out the entire thing, I've encountered many people who have no idea what I'm talking about. They've never heard of "Basic" D&D and didn't realize it was an official edition and that if I create content for Basic, it will still be semi-related and compatible with other editions.
@@brennonr What an awesome gift that was! I got mine because my mom went to our local game store in the early 2000's. I'd been shopping there for a while and they knew my name. She popped in and asked them what a good gift would be for my birthday, and they had just gotten one of these boxed sets in and she bought it for me. It was missing Monsters & Treasure, but had a copy of Chainmail included. Years later, they found a copy of Monsters and Treasure they gave me, but it's a different printing from the other 2 books in my set. I believe the trade refers to that as a "Frankenstein" box, but I still love it.
It was definitely a "wild west" time. The way most folks handled it, as I recall from the time, was either via Dragon magazine, or to just ignore it completely and mix-and-match stuff as we wanted! Thank you for watching and commenting!
Thanks for watching and commenting. Yes, I know, and I figured sooner or later someone would jump in to mention it. There was only so much time (and space!) I had, and I already felt the video was getting too long, and I also felt that in terms of rules CHANGES, the Player's Options changed more vs the DM's Option book. But, good catch!
I started in 1992 with my dad and his friends. They played a hybrid of 1st and 2nd edition, but it was all the same to me. I played in that game for years and then jumped into 3rd edition in my teenage years, playing with just my friends. 3.5 dropped around the time I graduated high school and started college, so that seems to be my sweet spot for nostalgia because I feel like I had the best times playing that edition and being really into the tabletop gaming scene. 4th edition came out the year my daughter was born. My wife and I, along with our friends, embraced the new changes that were made to the game, and to this day it’s my favorite edition of D&D. We really love tactical combat on a grid with miniatures so this edition was perfect for my group. Then 5th edition came along and we played that for awhile but quickly went back to playing older editions because we didn’t really enjoy it all that much. Since then I’ve retroactively played B/X and the retro clones that were inspired by it. I really love Old School Essentials for when I need that B/X fix, but my group and I are currently playing a 4th edition campaign that we started in the spring of 2022.
Thank you so much for watching, and also for sharing your TTRPG story! I love hearing about peoples' D&D journey! Your daughter was born around the same time as mine! (Although I'm quite a bit older than you based on 3.5 coming out when you were in high school!). I'm happy to hear of your love for 4E. I tried it a few times for one-shots and enjoyed it, but I was deep into a 3.X game that began in 2001 (still running! We're using a mix of 3.5 & Pathfinder 1E now) and didn't really want to change my game. I'm also *not* much of a tactical minis/map based combat guy. I prefer theater-of-the-mind. But I get tired of people bashing 4E. I'm running B/X (using Old School Essentials) for my daughter and her friends now (just had a game this past Saturday!) and having a blast!
I remember! I had the Dragons with the Thief-Acrobat, the Cavalier, most of the spells/cantrips, the new racial limits for Demi-Humans, and much more. The main thing I was missing was Dragon #63, with the Barbarian, which I searched for forever but could never find in a store. So I was excited to get the book for that reason.
Not a bad breakdown. Here's the breakdown of editions over the year that popped into my mind just seeing the title of the video: Chainmail fantasy supplement with man-to-man rules OD&D OD&D w/ Greyhawk and later OD&D supplements. Holmes edit of Basic AD&D Basic/Expert AD&D Surivial Guide Era (Non Weapon Profficiences rules are common) Basic/Expert/Companion/Master& Immortal Second edition. Rules Cyclopedia. Black Box Basic AD&D 2nd edition players option series (2.5) Dragonfist (a lot of people forget this ever existed or never knew about it at all) 3rd edition 3.5 edition 4th edition 5th edition
Thanks - my list matches up pretty closely with yours, although I didn't include Chainmail (I have a copy stuck in my White Box but I was trying to keep strictly to games with "Dungeons & Dragons" as part of the name - but I understand why you included it, although if I included that, I'd probably also include Blackmoor). I *did* forget about Dragonfirst - I stumbled across that one in the 3E era when I saw Chris Pramas share a link to a PDF download in a forum (probably on ENWorld). Nice call that you remembered it! I counted post-UA as "1.5" but yeah, I could see using Non-Weapon Proficiencies as the dividing line (although those appeared in Oriental Adventures, which pre-dated both Survival Guides). I added the Classic D&D Game, 4th Edition Essentials, and post-Tasha's as well, but honestly our lists are very, very close - that's very impressive for doing that off the top of your head! I had to look through my collection and make notes on the editions I don't have. I definitely would have forgotten the Black Box (I barely remember that one) or the Classic D&D game had I not done a bit of research to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
@@daddyrolleda1 oh that makes perfect sense, I just read the title of the video and typed out my list and then watched the video to see if my recollection would mesh.
Black Box D&D preceded the Rules Cyclopedia by about 6 months, so your list isn't ordered correctly. A few different versions of 2e are missing as well.
@@Dave_L I think that was pretty impressive for coming up with that list off the top of his head. How many versions of 2E do you include? I know they revised the covers at one point but I wouldn't include that as a different edition. Besides the initial release, Player's Option, and Dragonfist (which I didn't include in my list since it wasn't released publicly), what else do you think counts as a version of 2e?
Interesting note, the Monster Manual uses the 5-point alignment from Holmes and not the 9-point from AD&D. Also, the armor class is from OD&D and Holmes, it is on a base 9 and not 10.
Yes exactly! I recorded several versions of this video and in one of them I started to talk about the differences and specifically mentioned the Holmes 5-point alignment system vs OD&D 3-point and post-MM 1E 9-point. But it was getting too long and into the weeds, so I just said "the alignment system was different across all three editions..." That's also why I mentioned the 1st Edition Monster Manual was a weird situation because it was created for a game that technically didn't exist yet (Advanced D&D) and so people used it with both OD&D and Holmes Basic even though, as you point out, the rules don't always work together! Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 The rules aren't all that different. You mentioned movement (or was it distances?) AC is a one number difference so that's fairly negligible. I do find the history of our hobby interesting in regards to these releases. Thanks for making the video!
@@michaelwallace6851 Yeah, you're right - I did mention either movement or distance, as I was thinking about (I think) Moldvay Basic vs Holmes. In any event, yes, they're very compatible despite a few differences. I'm glad you liked the video! I'll be posting another video next week. Still thinking of what the topic will be!
@@daddyrolleda1 I also would argue that from 3e and newer are completely different games. Editions are OD&D through AD&D 2.5e since they are all 95% compatible. With 3e, backwards compatibility is gone, hence it is a new game and not a new edition.
@@michaelwallace6851 That is definitely a common view in the community especially among folks who started playing pre-3E. I do think the DNA is still there (class-and-level system, same six ability scores, roll high to hit, AC, saving throws, racial abilities, etc.). There's a lot that is similar but the switch to a unified mechanic in 3E definitely changed things as did the increase in power levels and of course Ascending AC. I think of all the editions, 4E is the outlier in terms of just how different and incompatible it is with the rest. For 5E, while I don't play it, I have a few 3rd party 5E supplements and I've been able to convert them on-the-fly for the B/X game I run for my daughter. I just ignore feats and stuff and dial down the power levels. But I do see your point: I think pre-3E is more about "adventurers" whereas post 3E is about "heroes."
Hello! Nice "meeting" you on @DMTales earlier today. Thanks for watching that video and asking your questions (I remember your Cheese Guild...). And, thank you very much for watching and commenting on this video. Great to have you here. Cheers!
I guess I actually played 3rd edition a couple times. However 5e is where I really got into RPGs. I do remember as a kid going into comic/game shops and seeing all those rulebooks and liking the covers. Damn I wish I had got into it sooner.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it. I can understanding wishing you'd started sooner, but I say just focus on the fun times you're having now! Cheers!
Hello! Following a March 1981 settlement between Arneson and Gygax/TSR, Dave was listed as a co-creator on D&D products (along with Gygax) and he received royalties on all D&D products (including Advanced D&D) going forward. Since Moldvay Basic came out in 1981 (although I can't find the *month* of release) and Mentzer Basic came out in 1983, those would have been included in the new arrangement.
Crazy to think that it took 36+ levels to become a god, while in 5e you start to feel like a Greek god at level 10+ and at level 20, coupled with powerful gear, you start to feel like a god.
The power creep has definitely occurred over the years, although the power of the monsters and various challenges has increased as well. Mathematically, it all works out roughly the same. You can spend all the time in the world to craft a super awesome min-maxed PC in 3.5 or 5E, but when you're fighting a bunch of monsters, your chances of hitting and killing the monsters is roughly the same. It just seems like you're doing more damage but when the HP of the monsters has increased also, it's all relative!
Pretty sure (from memory, so might be wrong) that's a holdover from the fact that Red Box had a level 36 cap in the experience tables and 1e AD&D had level 20 so people calibrated accordingly. Modern D&D rules lineage and the official campaign settings most directly stem from AD&D, so the level 20 range was the one that was retained. Certainly The Forgotten Realms box set had level 20 as near-godlike.
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I began in 1980 through 1990 and as a teenager it was a horribly confusing period. Things kept coming out and we didn't really know what was changing and we generally ignored them, doing either whatever first Basic version we had or played AD&D and ignored most supplements, focusing on modules. It was like a lot of background noise to us.
I definitely understand that with regard to all the different non-Advanced versions that were coming out (B/X, then BECMI, Easy-to-Master, Rules Cyclopedia, Classic D&D...). I had the Basic Box & the Expert Rulebook from the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh edition and pretty ignored all the later printings as it seemed like they weren't really changing all that much.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I appreciate it!
I started in 1990, age 11. I definitely ran 1E and 2E together without understanding that they were two separate, if very similar, games. It caused a lot of confusion. Not to mention all the basic modules
@@asafoetidajones8181 My group was the same in the early 80's with Basic vs Advanced, but we didn't realize we were confused! We just mixed them together and ignored the inconsistencies!
I thought we were the only ones
@@seanfaherty I think it was more common than not to be confused!
I'd love to see a longer version with more about how the rules changed between each
That could be a good topic. It'd probably have to be broken into a few different videos but it's something I can add to my list of potential topics. Thanks for the idea!
@@daddyrolleda1 I'd also find a longer version interesting. It was good to keep this video relatively short and factually neutral but I'd also like to see a version with some explanations what people liked/disliked about the editions, why the OSR focuses on some and not on others, why Pathfinder was forked off, etc. Those topics would me more controversial but interesting to someone like me who has some history with TTRPG but outside of D&D.
Even as someone who started playing AD&D in 1981 I found this video interesting and informative.
People who came to the hobby later on, especially those who grew up with Google always at their fingertips, might be surprised to learn that the hodge podge of early editions was just as confusing to most players who lived through that era as it is to them. Little if anything was published explaining the rationale behind all the different sets and even game shop staff were often confused about just how they related to one another.
At least where I grew up, the big increase in the game's popularity seemed to coincide with the release of the AD&D PHB and DMG, so that's what most of us played. Kids who had started with one of the boxed sets usually switched when they joined a school D&D club or similar group for the sake of compatibility. I get the impression that the boxed sets were more popular in less populous areas where small groups of geeky kids had to figure the game out without the benefit of a local gaming community but I could be wrong about that.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
That's an interesting theory! I myself started with Moldvay Basic in a smaller town (a suburb in Salt Lake City) but we quickly added in stuff from the Advanced D&D books we found at our local library, as at the time we didn't understand they were technically two separate games! So, that does coincide with how even the folks playing the games (and the store staff) didn't know the differences!
@@daddyrolleda1 I'm kinda surprised to learn that D&D was legal in Utah back in the day. 😉
@@RichBensen Ha! I know, right?! My dad got transferred there for his work (we came from the Bay Area, then Reno, then SLC so it was quite the culture shock!).
Some kids saw me reading some books about King Arthur mythology and asked if I'd read the Hobbit (I had) or Conan (I had not) and that started a conversation that led to them telling me about D&D. And to your point, looking back, it is surprising how open they were about it! A friend's mom gave me an issue of Dragon magazine for my birthday and other friends bought me some 1E hardbacks!
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), I only ever met one adult who was anti-FRP. The Satanic Panic was not really a thing for Mormons because of our beliefs (in that a thing is neither good nor evil, it is how it is used. Blame the GM, not the rules set.)
I myself grew up in a small rural community and didn't come across any game books till 1981 when I was in a book store and found a display of TSR books. It wasn't long before I was introduced to other games, like The Fantasy Trip; and by 1986 I had traveled around the world and played a dozen different games that were not published by TSR, though everyone also played AD&D everywhere I went.
There are a number of 1rst edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hardcover books that were missed. Deities & Demigods (1979), Fiend Folio (1980), Monster Manuel 2 (1983) and Oriental Adventures (1986)
Thank you for watching and commenting.
I covered all of those in a subsequent video on "The History of Advanced D&D Hardbacks": th-cam.com/video/M3ygZCjLqAk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=auUg_dWKJdrxvu4s
This video wasn't intended to cover every *product* published for each edition, but rather just show a sampling of each.
Deities & Demigods was published in 1980, the Fiend Folio in 1981, and Oriental Adventures in 1985. I also didn't talk about the Manual of the Planes (1987), Dragonlance Adventures (1987), or Greyhawk Adventures (1988).
@@daddyrolleda1 Thanks for the link. I totally forgot about Manuel of the Planes!
My friends and I never really got into the D&D side of things, but we got every book of (1st Edition) AD&D. It would be interesting to mention the cover prices of those hardcovers and convert to the current equivalent cost...for high school teens in the US, these were not cheap!
Good idea! I can cover that in a future video. I have all the AD&D hardbacks except one (Manual of the Planes) so I could go through them in a video. Thanks for the idea!
Zeb Cook wrote the “X” in B/X, as well as The Isle of Dread. Mentzer made almost zero changes for his edition of Expert because he thought it was so well done.
Yes! I recorded so many versions of this video and in a few of them, I went into details on the authors on the various editions and what else they had written (Zeb also wrote Oriental Adventures for 1E, etc.) but it was getting way too long and not really adding to the narrative of describing the different editions.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
@@daddyrolleda1 of course!
For me Moldvay/Cook were better than Mentzer. So I actually played "BXMCI". (instead of BECMI)
@@mirtos39 I started with Moldvay/Cook also, but by the time they got around to the Mentzer Companion, my friends had already moved to AD&D, so I never explored the Mentzer version other than through the Gazetteers.
Got in with 3.5, but have always looked back on Older Editions Longingly (Except 2e AD&D for the most part...I love the new and imaginative settings, but Lorraine Williams "No Playtesting" Policy leaves a bad taste in my mouth). Favorite would probably be BECMI (although probably using the Rules Cyclopedia-era Wrath of the Immortals rules for that level of play...), but have always been a bit confused as to the difference between B/X and BECMI mechanics-wise...most I've gotten so far were some very opinionated comments from the B/X crowd about stretching B/X Thief Skills over the 36 levels of BECMI instead of creating new ones for the Companion and Master Supplements.
In the early 80's , my favorite thing was going to the mall and seeing which new D&D supplements and books were out. that and the Hildebrandt Tolkien Calendars were my childhood.
We could've been twins, then! My early 80's were very similar. Those Hildebrandt Calendars were so awesome!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
This is so amazing to watch. I have been playing since I was a kid, but so much of this knowledge was completely unknown to me. Excellent video!
Thanks for watching and commenting! I'm glad you liked it and that it helped you learn a bit more about the history of the game!
I bought my first set (the White box) in 1976 (19 years old) when I found a copy in a small shop called Games Centre just off Oxford Street in London. I spent several weeks slowly working out how to play this weird game. I bought the four supplements (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry and GD&H) over the next year and that made things clear. I played games on an irregular basis for a number of years and gradually collected the books for 1st edition AD&D. I didn't start running a campaign until 1984 with a group of friends and relatives. This started with 1st edition but I converted to 2nd edition as soon as I could. I never used the 2.5 edition but I did play the BECMI version from time to time. My campaign came to an end in 2001, mostly due to various life events that happened to the players. I've never played since and never had the opportunity to start anew. But it's good to see the game still going.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and sharing your RPG "journey." I love hearing about how other people got into the game and their campaigns over the years.
What prompted you to buy the White Box when you saw it? Did you go to the shop specifically looking for that game, or did you pick it up only after you saw it on the shelf?
I started playing in 1981 with Moldvay Basic but didn't really start DM'ing a campaign until 2001 with 3E (which is still going to this day, in addition to the campaign I run for my daughter and her friends, for which I'm back to using Moldvay Basic).
I'm sorry you haven't had a chance to play since. Maybe things will change and you can start up again. Here's hoping!
@@daddyrolleda1 I picked up a magazine called 'Games & Puzzles' to read on the train home from work. It had an article on D&D and where to buy it. So I went there specifically to get the game.
Well done for keeping your campaign going!😊😊
I am missing gods and heroes. Also from 77 I have volume 1-3 of the Arduin Grimoire by David Hargrave and the book of monsters by Phil Edgren. Thanks for the video, forgot I had these.
That's so cool you have the old Arduin Grimoire stuff. I remember see ads for those in Dragon Magazine but I never saw them at any shop I had near me, and to this day I've never read them. Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
I've been playing since 76 and the white boxes. We were totally fans of the game, but like most players back then, didn't know that Chainmail was the ruleset and the white box the supplements. So, we were trying to play the white box as a ruleset with not much success and that prevented us from having a really good gaming experience. When the Holmes version came out, that was when we really discovered the game and I was hooked from then on. I've played every edition ever since (and still own all the core books from every edition, sans the Greyhawk and Blackmoor supplements, alas), but my favourite is 2e, with 5e a close second and 4e coming in a close third. Basic will always hold a special place for me, though.
Thanks for watching, and for sharing your D&D history!
I started with Moldvay Basic and only discovered Holmes & OD&D after the fact. Sadly, I didn't pay Holmes much time, and I only looked at OD&D as an oddity/relic. My friend had a copy of the Greyhawk Supplement he didn't want any more, and I found a pretty clean copy of Blackmoor (the one you see in the video) on a shelf at my shop back around 1983 for only $5.00. But I didn't get a White Box until around 1999 or so (a gift from my mom).
I collected a bunch of 2E stuff and created a bunch of NPCs and scenarios for it, but never got a chance to play, as we moved around the time it came out and I lost my group. By the time I found a new one, they were playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, so that's what I played for a while until 3E came out.
My brothers and I attempted to play the white box set, created characters and a dungeon, but quickly found out combat was missing. I only recently found out chainmail was the missing part.
@@edtcrandall Yeah, there was the Chainmail system, requiring another book, or the very poorly explained alternate system (which ended up being the default!).
Unfortunately, you skipped several of the the 1st Edition supplements like “Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide” and “Oriental Adventures”.
Thanks for watching and commenting. I didn't skip them - my intent wasn't to show every book from every edition, but rather to take about different editions as a whole. So, I covered the original 1E books and mentioned Unearthed Arcana as a sort of turning point that some folks say indicates the start of a "1.5 Edition" (although some say that didn't happen until non-weapon proficiencies in Oriental Adventures & the two Survival Guides). There are tons of other 1E books I didn't include in this one, such as the Fiend Folio, Deities & Demigods, Monster Manual II, Dragonlance Adventures, Greyhawk Adventures, and Manual of the Planes, but similarly I didn't include any supplemental books for 2E, 3E, 4E, or 5E.
@@daddyrolleda1 it just seemed like there was a big jump there from the mid- 80’s to 89’ all of the sudden...
@@Bren71319 Yeah, fair enough. I recorded several versions of the video and they were all getting way too long, so I tried to cut this one down to just the core moments but perhaps I cut out a bit too much.
First printing (Wood box) = January 1974. Fourth printing (White box) = November 1975. D&D Basic set first printing = July 1977 with lizard logo and code in the upper right is F115-R.
I first saw some guys playing D&D, probably in 1977 or 78, using the white box set. They had a huge map on a dining room table and it seemed like they were fighting a huge battle. I just had to play this game!
Later some friends of mine got me playing with the Basic set and the Keep on the Borderlands module. I later was playing with those same guys I had first watched playing D&D and they were still using the White Box set but it wasn't long before they were using the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books.
Few of us could afford these books and we shared them. Letting players read them here and there meant that hardly any of us really knew the rules. You mostly knew the rules for the character classes that you played. For me it was the Thief and I studied those rules. Others like playing mages and knew those rules backwards and forwards. It was those few that had started with the original box set that knew most of the rules and those ended up being our Dungeon Masters.
When 2nd edition came around, most of us weren't too thrilled with it. Some stuff we liked but most we didn't. So we kept the best and threw out the rest.
We never did really stop using AD&D. We just added stuff we liked into our games, just like we did in the past with all the cool stuff that came out in magazines. We kept what we liked and dumped the rest.
Thank you for watching and commenting, and sharing your history with the game! I love reading stories like this.
Your experiences are very similar to mine except that I started with B/X. But as far as not reading all the rules because we were sharing books, and also using bits and pieces we liked from Dragon, etc. - we totally did that!
Hi there! I love that you are putting this info out there so simply and so concisely!
I am fortunate enough to have almost literally every single book and box set that you mentioned, including the obscure ones like the Black Box! To hear someone actually talk about all of this stuff that I’ve spent thousands of dollars on has really put a smile on my face!
Excellent video, you have a new follower!
Thank you so much for watching, commenting, and subscribing! I really appreciate it.
That's so cool that you have all the different editions! I started with B/X and immediately began incorporating stuff from AD&D but after that, I was pretty careful with my purchases because I didn't have a ton of money. I skipped the BECMI line because I didn't think I needed it since it seemed so similar to Moldvay. I contemplated getting the Companion Set since B/X stops at Level 14, but then decided I could just get by with AD&D. So that's why those are missing from my collection. By the time 2E came out, the gaming group I found had switched to playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay so while I got the PHB & Monstrous Manual, I didn't get any other 2E stuff.
Thanks again!
I have the tan box. I found out The Denning text/black box text is where the weird contradicting "you can't move and attack" rules text in the Rules Cyclopedia comes form.
First d&d my friends and i played, roughly 25 years ago, was based off a 1st edition ad&d players handbook (late 80s i think?) And a 2nd edition dungeon master guide . We found both at a yardsale and nome of us had played before. So we used a weird hodgepodge of rules into 3.0 came out haha
We all played a hodge-podge, too! I started with Moldvay Basic in 1981 and very quickly thereafter discovered AD&D through friends. We mixed and matched the two systems, as we didn't realize at the time that Basic was not supposed to lead into Advanced, but rather it was a different game.
When 2E came out, I was working on a campaign and I shifting to the 2E rules.. "kind of." I kept using Cavaliers, Barbarians, Assassins, and Half-Orcs, all of which had been removed from 2E (at least the initial core book) but I updated them with Non-Weapon Proficiencies, etc. That style of play was very common until 3E came out, as that edition was so different mechanically that trying to mix and match stuff became a chore.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Mate, this was awesome. Would love a breakdown by you module by module/adventure by adventure.
I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed the video! It's one of my favorites.
Thank you for watching and commenting. A discussion about the various modules is on the list of potential future videos. Thanks!
Supplement one Greyhawk was the first D&D book I ever bought.. on sale in a NJ mall hobby store sitting on the clearance shelf. Had to be be in 1980 and I convinced my mom to buy it for me to read.. and there it began, I remember getting the basic Holmes blue box edition shorty after as a gift from a family member and AD&D right after that. I won't touch a WotC D&D product these days and even by the mid 80s I preferred Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay over D&D at least until the early nineties and Dark Sun came around.. Lots of nostalgia, too bad the IP has fallen so far over the last 20 years
Thank you very much for watching and commenting, and also for sharing you story/history with the game.
I started playing in 1981, but I remember discovering the existence of the Greyhawk Supplement while at a sleepover at a friend's house. That book was my first exposure to Original D&D.
In the mid-80's, we moved and I lost my gaming group. My new group in my new state was playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay so I lost about a decade of playing D&D until I came back to play 3rd Edition. I got really into that edition and am still running a 3E/Pathfinder1E campaign that began in May 2001. But I'm also back to my roots running a 1981 Moldvay Basic game for my 13yo daughter and her friends, and having a blast!
That said, I quite like many things with 5E. While I don't play or run that edition, I've borrowed a few ideas from it to include in my other games. 4E had a really good Dungeon Master's Guide in terms of advice for running games, and also had a really good concept in the Monster Manual for running minions for monsters. I try to peruse through each edition to see if there's anything useful, new, or creative I can incorporate into my games.
you know, its amazing how little progress there has been for the mechanics of a d20 system. its been add numbers or remove numbers and recently they had the idea of Roll 2 and pick the lowest highest! (which spoiler increases or reduce the average by 66% percent)
Firstly, thank you for commenting! And secondly, my apologies for the very delayed response! I didn't see a notification for your comment so just luckily ran across it today!
Yes, 5E introduced Advantage/Disadvantage, which I prefer to 3E/3.5's long list of various plus-and-minus modifiers (and don't get me wrong - I played 3.X for a really long time and am still running a game using that system). As far as the math, what I've seen is that using Advantage/Disadvantage increases or reduces the die roll by an average of 4.5, or 22.5%. Then again, I am really not great at math so I may have misunderstood!
@@daddyrolleda1 the way i heard it is that it increses or reduces it by 3.5, but it doubles the chances to crit miss or hit.
the problem with d20s is that there VERY little you can do to them other than increasing the number or adv/disadv.
@@DareToWonder Makes sense. I do like the idea of rolling dice, as it adds a totally random element to the game that can then be narrated as to its effects. I have a very good friend who has min-maxed his character in the game I run for him (been going since May 2001) that his chance of failing any kind of roll/check is very low. He does that on purpose because his personality is that he doesn't want to be surprised, and he also looks at character creation as an exercise in how to "beat the system."
My style is that I like (as James Maliszewski put it) the "oracular power of the dice." I *want* there to be surprises I didn't expect, and as a DM, that gives me some real fun, as I have to figure out how to narrate what the dice just indicated. As a player, he really dislikes that. 😀
I can't stomach after 2nd edition. Currently playing Old School Essentials sticking to good ol' fashion B/X with the mix of Advanced.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I played and ran a ton of 3E/3.5 & am still running a campaign for that system that began in May 2001. But, once it wraps, I won't ever run that system again. I'd play it if someone else ran it. But I don't want to change systems this close to the campaign end.
I'm also running Old School Essentials for my 13yo daughter and her friends! I have the Advanced Books, but other than the monsters, I haven't included anything else yet. We are having a blast - easily the most fun I've had running a D&D game.
GREAT VIDEO!
Small addition but in 1992 there was an revised edition of the Immortals Box to be used with the Rules Cyclopedia (iirc) called "Wrath of the Immortals" 😃
Oh, that's right! One day I might re-make this video and I'll make sure to include that!
I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and thank you very much for watching and commenting!
I first played AD&D in the fall of 1980 with group of military members in Germany (I was in the Air Force). I continued to play (even DMing) through 3rd edition. I started to feel fatigue when endless supplements were released. I didn't do 4th edition. I recently briefly joined a 5th edition campaign and bought a player's handbook. I prefer 3rd edition.
I started just shortly after you, in 1981, with Moldvay B/X, but in terms of total number of hours of playing, I've spent the most time playing 3E/3.5/Pathfinder1E (I kind of just lump them all together). I played 4E just two times, and it wasn't for me, but, I don't begrudge players for liking it. I've played 5E a handful of times, and while I would choose to not run that system, if someone invited me to a game, I would totally play it. But I also know my PC would be less effective than other PCs because I don't spend time on things like "builds" and figuring out the math to do cool combos, etc. And again, I totally don't begrudge people who do that. It's just not my style of playing. I'm not good at it, and that's partly because my enjoyment of the game does not come from system mastery. But for folks who like that, I think that's awesome!
This is so awesome! Thank you for sharing and making this video. I'm now a subscriber.
I really appreciate you watching and commenting! Thank you so much!
Let me know what other kinds of topics you'd like to see me cover. Cheers!
I know I am not being accurate when I say this, but to me, there are 7 stages of D&D. 5e, 4e, 3e, 2e, 1e, Mentzer Basic (where I started)/BECMI, and "What came before me".
Ha! Yeah, I think that's a common way of looking at it.
It's definitely muddied and there really aren't clear definitions to a lot of these things. For example, "1E" is a name that was never used. There was Advanced D&D, and then Advanced D&D 2nd Edition, and then D&D 3rd Edition. And the non-Advanced line didn't have any numbers. Every time, it was just called "Dungeons & Dragons" even through retroactively, we distinguish them as Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, Black Box, Rules Cyclopedia, Classic D&D... But technically those are all the same game.
From what I've seen online, BECMI seems to have been the gateway for far more folks than the edition I began with (Moldvay or "B/X") even though the old-school community tends to prefer tinkering around with B/X more as a game chasis for whatever reason.
One nugget to add is the Ranger class was added in 1975 from an issue of The Strategic Review vol. 1 no. 2 newsletter. That was then printed in the AD&D 1e Player's Handbook. There were a lot of fringe rules that came out that way or in Dragon magazine first, but the real-deal rule books is where it really counted. :-) I just wanted to add that, since I am a junkie for the old Ranger class... my favorite still. ;-)
Wait until you see my next video (should be posted tomorrow, March 16th)! I think you'll like it.
@@daddyrolleda1 I'll wait with bated breath! :-D
I was, and am still very much in love with the 2nd edition (AD&D). Tho the system is obtuse and hard to understand with too many small rules that don't add much and complicate the flow of the game sessions, it had the best spells (especially with the Forgotten Reams ones) and the Triple classes were to me an absolute joy to play. The different experience curved and max HP limits really help balance the game. It was FAR more balanced than the 3rd or 3.5ed, not to mention those 5 saving throws so that every class had an edge against something. Sadly, I am the ONLY one at my table that loves it and thus unless I DM it, no one wants to, so I can never play as a player anymore. I modernized it to 3,5ed with skills and replaced Thac0 tables with "To Hit" tables, and converted the 5 saving throws into the same system 3,5 uses. Worked like an absolute charm and my players LOVED it too... again not enough to DM it (arrrrgh !)
3,0 was rough, too much buffing (everyone and their mom used spells to buff themselves and you had so much metagaming with that, made me sick as a DM and bored as a player). Also a level 20 dwarf fighter with 24con (20 +1 each 4 levels) now had 340hps, whereto the same dwarf with 19con in 2nd had like 190hps if not less (comparing maximums). yet the wizard's fireball still only did the same 10d6. It was pure idiocy and messed-up balance. Only 3 saving throws made it easy to get near immunity even with a "weak save number" on your class.
3.5 improved it some and it became my second best edition, I still DM in that system to this day, and enjoy playing it too. We had to smooth the rough edge with house rules that everyone agreed on (6-8ppl all agreeing on house rules? now that's perfect!), such as boosting 1min/level buff spells to 10min/level, and 1round/level summons to 1min/level (except demons/elemental lords and other B/S). No items could boost your saves (except bonus from stats) and caster level is the sum of all your magic classes (allowing for that Cleric/Mage again !). We usually work with a point buy system so nobody gets unlucky and have a crap character, or get lucky and gets a bunch of super high stats. Still the HP issues, it really gets bad after level 10, and I think I will revert to HPs from 2nd edition in my next major campaign to reign that in.
4th edition I hated, with a passion, and every one at my table gave it a try but ultimately ditched it. Had a couple nice ideas, which we poached for some of our house runes ( casting in rituals, minions, some feats, the Eladrin fey-elf... it wasn't all bad, but it felt like a computer game instead of a table-top game).
5th edition is... well... meh. It fixed my power-gaming issues from 3.0/3.5 which is a huge plus. Most spells are very poor and not worth their slot cost (let alone empowering them by using higher slots) and metamagic feats really blows. The melee classes are pretty good for the most part, so is the "Healing Cleric", and the Thief is almost overpowered. Still I can play this all night and still have fun. Not DMing it tho. Not a fan of the weak stats for character generation tho, monsters still have 24str or more for the classic ones like Ogre and Demons, but now getting over 15 is difficult and expensive as eff. But that is more to do with my DMs who are alergic to 18's and above, lol. We started houseruling this (much to my insistance), and with very very slight alterations we got a system with is far more fun (such as reverting to MP instead of slots for casters) and adding feats for extra concentration spells and not having the limit of 2-3 magic items.
To each their own, I'd still rather play 3,5ed, or of course 2nd ed. That said, I can't wait to see the 6th edition. I really hope it improves the game and bring back the triple/dual classes in some form... 5th ed is very lacking in that regards, and 3.5 (non-houseruled) kinda blew as well without those endless supplement of prestige class (but we usually play with basic books only).
Thanks for the video !
Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the game and your history with the various editions!
While I started with B/X and am back to running it for my daughter and her friends, I spent the most total hours of time playing 3E/3.5/Pathfinder1 in a campaign that started in May 2001 and which is still on-going. I'm the DM for that one and over the past few years, I've grown disenchanted with that system as a DM. I used to *love* it and have a ton of books and supplements for it but it's become a slog to DM. If someone else wants to run it, I'd play, but once this campaign wraps, I'll never run it again. I am just not someone who enjoys system mastery (mixing-and-matching to find the perfect combination to do things) and that edition really shines for folks who *do* like that. It's just too much work to design encounters and run combats, for me. But like you said, to each their own!
I just did a much more basic version of this video. Good to see. much love
I really appreciate that! I wasn't aware of your video, but now I want to go look it up. Thanks for alerting me!
Red box basic was my first owned, but we were playing B/X a little before in our neighborhood. To this day I still prefer BECMI
Thanks for watching and commenting!
What is it about BECMI that you prefer to B/X? I always found they were pretty compatible.
Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 I definitely feel like they are fundamentally similar, but there's a lighter tone to BECMI, more heroic and less grim. I can't really pinpoint how or why that is, but I assume it's in presentation. Less Eldritch and more knight of the realm.
I wouldn't consider Unearthed Arcana 1.5 any more than I would consider material from Dragon Magazine to create a sub edition of the game. As the official house organ of D&D/AD&D, Dragon Magazine had more supplemental rules over #1-#90 than were later published in books. I also refer to the Players Optiojns and DM Options books as munchkin bait and being the end of AD&D as a playable game.
Thanks for watching and commenting. There are definitely people who would agree with your assessment of the Player's Options books for 2E. I never used them myself but I also wasn't actively playing 2E at the time, as my group had decided to switch to playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. 3E is what got me back into playing D&D and I'm still running a 3E campaign to this day that began back in May 2001. I'm also running a 1981 Moldvay Basic game for my 13yo daughter and her friends. We had our 19th session yesterday (we play on average a little less than once a month).
Yeah I had a love hate relationship with those 2.5 books.
Dave Arneson won in the end and Gygax and him resolved it out of court with Gygax/TSR paying Arneson 2.5% Royalties crediting Gygax and Arneson as "co-creators". When TSR was acquired by WoTC, they actually had to go to Arneson and pay him an "Undisclosed amount" for his share.
It is sad though in some ways. Arneson really loved TSR. After Gygax was forced out and before their Acquisition by WoTC they were floundering and Arneson wrote several letters saying he would love to come back and fox the company.
Thanks for this comprehensive video!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
I had read that about how Dave Arneson wrote to Peter Adkison at WotC in 1997 about coming back to fix D&D. It's sad that he never got to work on it again, but from what else I have read, I get the impression Dave was more of a creator and not a business person (the same could probably be said of Gary, although Gary had at least some business sense, it seems). At least WotC made efforts to put Arneson's name back in the books as a co-creator of the original version of the game.
Thanks again! I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
3rd edition is definitely my favourite
While I'm currently enjoying and running 1981 Moldvay Basic for my daughter and her friends, in terms of sheer total number of hours playing, I've played the most of 3/3.5/Pathfinder1E (I lump them all together).
This is a good explanation of the editions. The only thing missing is a mention of "The White Box Set" having room for the Chainmail rules book for those that had it and alternative rules for playing without Chainmail. Thus even at the start there was a split in the D&D community.
Loved the trip down memory lane.
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it, and stay tuned for more. I think I'll perhaps do a deeper-dive into the different editions I personally own in my collection.
This was an excellent video. Thanks so much for sharing!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
I made this one primarily because I run a 1981 Basic game for my 13 year-old daughter & her friends, and I was finding on Twitter that nobody had any idea what I was talking about when I said I was running B/X.
I'm so glad people are enjoying and learning from it!
I started with Moldvay 1981or 1982 . Then played AD&D. I have been collecting different editions and books. It is a lot of fun. Depending on when you started will be the same or different edition,but as long as you have fun that is what really counts .
I completely agree! Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
My dad passed his 1981 Basic D&D rules after he passed away onto me! It’s wild reading through that compared to modern d&d
I'm sorry for the loss of your dad, but what a great gift he left you with. Yes, if you're only used to modern versions of D&D (post-2000), I suspect it would seem very wild!
I'm actually running that same edition your dad gifted you (1981 Basic) for my 15yo daughter and her friends (started when they were 11) and we are having a blast!
Really good overview of the editions. :-) Keep the D&D history vids coming! Maybe cover the adventure modules, magazines, and even 3rd party stuff from back in the day. :-)
Thank you very much - I really appreciate you watching and commenting and offering suggestions! I can definitely cover modules and magazines (mostly Dragon). Thanks again!
@@daddyrolleda1 Count me in for that! :-D I love stuff about the vintage stuff. You got a sub from me. ^_^
@@KabukiKid Fantastic! Thank you so much! I'll work on some more vintage stuff soon. It is pouring here again so I've lost all my natural light and, frankly, it's too loud to record a video right now! I have a VERY cheap set-up!
Dr Holmes version is the hardest to play. Spellcasters have to go all the way home and sleep in their bed to regain spells.
It's funny to pick out the little nuances in Holmes vs the other editions. There aren't many, but there are a few and they always strike me as funny. Thanks for sharing this little tidbit!
Brilliant and concise
Thank you very much! So glad you enjoyed it!
I guess I was one of the lucky kids back then. Me and my friends had already been playing otther TSR wargames when I picked this up at the hobbyshop with my paper route money. We took to DnD pretty naturally. I still have my basic rule book. My ADnD books are prized possessions. ❤
That's great! I didn't come to it from a wargames background but I loved it immediately. So, I guess I was part of that second-wave who discovered the game through a love of fantasy literature instead of from wargames.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Enjoy the video. Thanx for getting so this together. Should you consider releasing an update to the history...
😊
The history of D&D should include reference both magazines which provided "official" material.
Today, rules from "The Strategic Review" and "Dragon Magazine" might better be referred to as Beta Rules.
The other item missing is the drop in quality in late 1st and 2nd Edition books. This resulted in issues with the books bindings and pages gaming of out.
Pathfinder (P1) was created by the individuals (aka Paizo) who took over Dragon and Dungeon magazines during 3.5. The first edition allowed fans of 3.5 to continue using all those 📚 books with P1.
I see P1 and P2 as the spiritual successors to AD&D. While 4e & 5e inherit the simplicity of the Dungeons & Dragons box sets.
Even today we have an over haul of 5e to D&D-One along with P1 to PFc¹.
￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
¹PFc ~ PathFinder Core
(aka Remastery editions)
Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
For this one, I was specifically trying to *only* focus on published games by the company that published D&D (so, TSR and WotC). That's why I left out a lot of early stuff like Blackmoor, Chainmail, and the magazine stuff. I do, however, mention both The Strategic Review and Dragon in several of my videos (most notably the videos on character classes such as Clerics-Paladins-Rangers-Illusionists-Bards: th-cam.com/video/PORfiBst6HE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=FBTGJTJuF2HyA48S). And, I plan to devote specific videos to those magazines in the future!
While I didn't mention the binding issues in this video (as it was focused mainly on just labeling and numbering the editions), I have mentioned it a few times including in my video on Unearthed Arcana (th-cam.com/video/zwU7bsSKQmE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=qr6ImTLgtozrlMvr).
I played a lot of PF1 and agree it's a spiritual successor to 3.5 but, again, I was trying to only focus on games with Dungeons and Dragons in the name and also games by the "official" publisher of D&D. It's also why I didn't include TSR games like the Dragonlance Saga RPG, as that was not branded as a D&D game.
Thanks again!
I've played every version in some form or another since 1981. I was playing "High Fantasy" in 1980, and was invited to a homebrew OD&D game. With my Brother and other family, played both B and X, and AD&D, of which 1st Ed is my favorite to this day. I was sorely disappointed with 2nd Edition when Monks were dropped. Played that on occasion while I was enlisted in the Marine Corps. I started my own kids with 3rd Edition, 3.5, and 4e. I've also played and collected many other TTRPGs over the years, but return to D&D. Likely going back to 1st Edition AD&D since I really don't like 5e very much. Thanks for this video.
Thank you for watching, and commenting, and sharing you story! I started with B/X in 1981 and we quickly incorporated many ideas from AD&D without realizing at the time that they were technically two separate games with mechanics that don't always match. I collected some 2E stuff but never really played it, and I, too, was disappointed by the stuff they removed, such as Monks, but also the new classes that had debuted in Unearthed Arcana like Barbarians, Cavaliers, and Thief-Acrobats. I was hoping for *more* classes in 2E, not fewer. I got back into D&D with 3E and I still run a 3.X/Pathfinder1E campaign to this day that began back in May 2001. But once that's done, I don't see myself ever running that system again. I played a bit of 4E and 5E but my main games these days are spent with Savage Worlds as a player and back to my roots running a 1981 B/X game for my 13 year-old daughter and her friends (we have a session planned for tomorrow - they're going through the Keep on the Borderlands and are planning to investigate Cave K!).
Thanks again - I hope you stick around and find other videos you enjoy. Cheers!
I think I may be one of the few people that enjoyed 4e. It felt like everyone got more tactical options than just swing a sword or shoot a bow for fighters. Recently I've become disenchanted with 5e. It feels too unbalanced, making it almost impossible to challenge a party beyond 3rd or fourth level. I'm currently working on learning the current version of Pathfinder to see if that can work better.
4E had a lot of fans and I had fun the couple of times I played it. I think it would have fared a lot better had it been marketed as a D&D Tactical Wargame versus the "new" edition of D&D. It was just too different from what had come before and I think it caused a lot of folks to dismiss it even though it did have some really neat elements to it.
More like Daddy rolled a natural 20!
I'm commenting here, but I'm four videos into your history series. I thank the TH-cam algorithm Gods for putting a video of yours in my feed. After seeing the topics you covered, I immediately subscribed and will happily be watching all of your videos.
I played my first game of AD&D in 1982 and have been hooked ever since. You and I seem to be in a similar situation, as my son discovered my role-playing games collection a couple of years ago, so I dusted off my dungeon master chops and started running a game for him solo which has now grown to him and four of his friends. In fact, I'll be running my first game of Top Secret in 30 years for them soon.
Anyway, I'm loving your content, and I hope you have the best of luck with your channel. Keep the great videos coming.
This is such a great comment - I appreciate it so much! Thank you for your support in subscribing, and I'm also very glad my content got recommended to you! I have no idea how that works and why certain videos get recommended more than others.
So very cool you're playing D&D and other TTRPGs with your son and his friends! I've found it's a fun way to stay connected and do stuff with my daughter as she grows older and we have fewer things in common. And, while she's not expressed this thought directly, I do think she appreciates that I take time to make this game for her and coordinate a time for her to play with her friends, and then they get to all hang out after the game as well.
Thanks again! I look forward to chatting with you more in the comments in the future!
I grew up with BECMI, though a friend had the Expert rules from the previous version. The thing I didn't like about higher level play with this version was that it was all about establishing strongholds, which didn't interest me at all.
Yes, at the dawn of the hobby (especially for the original game and for the Holmes/Moldvay/Mentzer "Basic" versions that followed), domain level play was the goal of most characters. You reached "name level" and were able to build some kind of stronghold/temple/guild and attract followers to staff it for you. The thought was that most players would retire their PCs at that point and start over with new ones. It was kind of the "goal" of the game, but as more and more people entered the hobby without a wargaming background and a desire to manage a domain or "win" the game, the goals shifted. I've not gamed with anybody who wanted to retire their PC after building a stronghold!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
It’s funny I have a copy of Men and Magic and my family kept on disputing with me that it was not from the the OG D&D.
Although the cover of mine looks a bit different so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
The cover was changed! The original cover featured a knight type character on a horse, but that was actually a copied drawing of the "Black Knight" character from a "Doctor Strange" comic! It was very common in early D&D for much of the art to be copies/tracings of comic book art. Once that was discovered, the cover was changed to the more familiar version you see in the copy I have.
If it says "Men & Magic" and it's a brown digest size booklet, it's definitely from D&D! And if you have the mounted warrior on the horse, you have one of the earliest (and most valuable) printings!
My friends had AD&D2, but the first books I bought were AD&D2 Revised, with a barbarian breaking down a door on the cover. Is that actually any different, or was it just a reprint to make more money?
The revised covers for 2E were similar to the revised covers for 1E - just new cover art but same interior contents. A few people have mentioned I didn't include them, and in hindsight I should've at least mentioned them, but to me, they aren't separate editions since the content is the same. Whether it was just an attempt to make more money is difficult to say. I know the reasoning behind the 1E revised covers (to create a more coherent branding as well as avoid the idol on the PHB and the red Efreet on the DMG which many people thought was a devil or demon - this was during Satanic Panic). But as for 2E, that wasn't really an issue. I guess it was just a "refresh."
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Thank you! Great stuff! I began with Basic D&D in 1978. Nowadays, I prefer using 1e and 2e, and I try to cherry pick. :)
I'm back to running a 1981 B/X game for my 13yo daughter & her friends, but I incorporate stuff from 1E & 2E as well.
Thank you so much for watching & commenting!
For some reason the Mentzer editions never appealed to me. I can't explain why, it's basically the same rules, but something about the Moldvay/Cook editions seemed much better to me.
I feel (and felt) the same, but partially it's because by the time the Mentzer editions came out, my group had moved more toward AD&D and I felt I didn't need another "Basic" set.
However, I also feel the aesthetics of Moldvay/Cook/Marsh adhere closer to both the original game and to the first five AD&D hardbacks. The Mentzer edition definitely feels more "corporate" to me in terms of presentation and layout. I do love the Elmore art and that Red Box cover is iconic, but I noticed even back then that it was a shift in tone. The Holmes and Moldvay covers show a party of adventurers (Moldvay is only two, but still...) and the AD&D Player's Handbook also shows an adventuring party compete with equipment, maps, etc. The Mentzer cover shows a *hero* (not an adventurer) facing down a dragon in single combat for glory and fame. It begins to present the game in a different style, and while I'm sure he didn't intend that (the original Elmore cover *did* feature an adventuring party but the decision was made to revise it to focus only one the single warrior hero) it is interesting to me that this also came at a time with a shift in the style of play of the game that continues to this day.
80s BECMI/1e AD&D kid here - have love 'Basic D&D' for so long. Can't get enough of the Rules Cyclopedia (even mine is only a PoD H/C). I also love 2e AD&D - this history is great. I've seen so many online but this one doesn't linger too long. I like hearing yours (others)experiences with older editions of the game pre-WOTC 3.0/3.5 ed.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
I was really trying to get through the whole history in 20 minutes or less and I just about made it! I do feel it was a bit rushed at the end, but as you said, I was trying not to linger too long. I'm so glad you appreciate my approach.
I started with Moldvay, so just slightly before you, and we immediately mixed it with 1E because we didn't know we weren't supposed to. But I've played a *ton* of 3E/3.5 and am still running a campaign for that system that I started back in May 2001.
Thanks again!
The first game I played in 1977 used the Homes Basic box set, I think it was $10.00. We tried to learn it playing with way too many people. fun times!
Yes, I think $10 sounds about right. I know the original Boxed Set of the three little brown books was also $10.00.
I started a little after you with the Moldvay Basic set, but I was lucky to have other kids teach me the game. Of course years later, I discovered we weren't playing it correctly!
Eldritch Wizardry was the first one I purchased. I chose it because of the nekkid woman on it.
I remember being afraid my mom would see it!
I still have my very tattered copy of the 1977 rulebook, worthless now due to wear and tear but I'm never throwing it out. Too much history
I know very much how you feel. I've kept many things that others would've long ago discarded, but they always bring a smile to my face when I come across them after a few years of not having looked at them. I kept my original copy of Greyhawk: Supplement I even though a friend had tried to hole-punch it, poorly, TWICE, so there were un-aligned holes throughout the book and the cover was loose. But I've had that book for about 40 years. I only recently gave it away as part of my 2,500 Subscribers Giveaway. It's a reader's copy (not a collector's copy) and I know someone else out there who has never read it will enjoy it. There was no reason at this point to hold onto it, especially since I'd replaced it with a non-damaged copy nearly 20 years ago.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
What about the swords and spells book ? Was that part of the .5 edition ? I’m wondering why you didn’t mention it ?
Interestingly, TSR indicated that "Gods, Demigods & Heroes" was the "last" D&D supplement, and Swords & Spells was published after that. While it's informally referred to as "Supplement V" it doesn't actually say it's a supplement on the cover (although I recognize it says it's "For Use With Dungeons & Dragons"). Even the intro to Gods, Demigods & Heroes states that it's the last supplement for D&D.
Ultimately, to me, Swords & Spells is miniatures wargames rules to use with D&D, but unlike the other previous supplements, doesn't add or expand on any rules in D&D that are still used today, so I left it off my list.
All that said, that's just my definition and if someone wants to include "Swords & Spells" as part of the so-called "0.5 Edition," I wouldn't try to say they are wrong!
I really appreciate you watching and commenting!
3.5e definitely my favorite edition. When 4e came out, Paizo made Pathfinder, (or D&D 3.75e) which made it even better. I have friends that love 2e though, saying there is too much math in 3e/3.5e/and Pathfinder. I just couldn't stomach the chaos of the earlier editions anymore after experiencing the elegance and depth of 3e+.
Although I started playing back in 1981 with Moldvay Basic, in terms of sheer numbers of hours played, I've played more of 3E/3.5/PF1E than any other edition. I started a 3E campaign in May 2001 that's still running today (using PF) but when it wraps, I don't intend to ever run that system again. I'd play it if someone else ran it, but I find I don't enjoy running high-level 3.x games. I also played in a ~12 year 3E/3.5 game and we also dabbled in D20 Modern (specifically the D20 Cthulhu game).
I appreciate that I get *how* the math works in 3.X but as time has gone on, I find that I'm much more nimble and flexible at running a system like B/X, which is what I'm using now for my daughter's campaign. I do have a *TON* of 3.X stuff, both WotC and 3rd Party, and I use a lot of the idea, stripped of the mechanics, in that game as well.
Thanks again for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
2.5 Edition was awsome!
Edit: I have a ton of experience with it. The biggest things 2.5 did was let you build your own race and class. You picked a regular race and class and had points to select race abilities and points to pick your class abilities. You could take abilities (drawbacks) that were worth negative points to gain more points. Any unspent points could be used to buy or increase proficiencies (which also cost points to buy). By default, if you took the regular version of races and classes, you wouldn't have an extra points. This makes it completely compatible with non-Skills and Powers characters.
The big thing is customizing your character. You could buy the ability for the wizard to cast in armor. A Cleric could buy improve weapon proficiencies like swords. You could pay for this by giving up access to certain spell schools / circles or limiting your armor or taking behavioral restrictions like a Paladin. It let you swap out features you didn't want or weren't going to use for features you wanted and were going to use.
The other big thing in S&P is sub- ability scores. Each stat had two sub abilities that by default were the same as you primarily ability score. Each sub ability was tied to a part of the ability. Dex had one part tied to Range Attack bonus and another tied to AC bonus. You could raise one by lowering the other up to 2 point. So, instead of Dex 14, you could have Dex 12 for Ranged Attacks and a Dex 16 for AC. This was by far the most broken part of S&P since in practice every character just got +2 to basically every stat by eschewing the other half of the stat's use.
Coupled with the custom races and classes, S&P characters were much more optimized and powerful. In my opinion, these easily added a level or more raw power to characters built with the default points expenditures. Needless to say, old skool players often found S&P to be too gamey and too powerful meant for munchkins and power gamers. Like all additional options, you didn't have to power game it. You could simply use it to buy what your concept was going to actually use and be instead of whatever narrow tired trope an author wrote. It was great.
That is probably the edition with which I have the least experience! I collected a lot of the "base" 2E books, but by the time the Player's Option series stuff came out, my group had moved to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and I'd stopped playing for a few years while I finished college and started my career. I came back hard with 3E but, although I was aware of it from articles in Dragon magazine, I basically missed 2.5.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I edited my post with more detail.
Thanks for all that added detail! That really helps explain the system.
I always struggle with drawbacks like the "behavioral restrictions" of a Paladin, as I find more often than not they get ignored or forgotten by the player and the DM, and you end up with a PC that got extra benefits for no drawbacks. Many of the 2E kits were built this way and I recall it's one of the reasons a lot of folks didn't like them.
This is awesome. Highly informative. A cool sequel video to this would be the retroclones (those that attempt to most closely match a version) that now exist out there and which version they are most closely trying to mimic.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
I can definitely make a video on retroclones and what edition each one is trying to emulate! Great idea - thanks! I will add it to the queue. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 I have been following the OSR and there are a huge number of home brew rule sets available, very few are what I would call a clone of a specific edition. Old School Essentials being the only one I would truly call a clone. The rest I would say are "inspired by" certain editions. Such as OSRIC being inspired by 1st edition and Gold & Glory being inspired by 2nd edition.
This is by-and-large true. The only "exact" clone that I'm aware of, as you point out, is Old School Essentials for B/X. But the term "retro-clone" has been used long enough in the OSR Community that most folks have at least a vague idea that if you use that term a game like OSRIC is a retro-clone of AD&D 1E, Labyrinth Lord is a retro-clone of B/X, and Swords & Wizardry (at least, *some* of its iterations - they are a lot!) is a retro-clone of OD&D White Box.
Then you've got games that are inspired by some of those editions but are a step or two removed, such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess being inspired by, and sharing a lot of mechanics with, B/X, but going in its own direction (most notably with the Specialist class replacing the Thief and the X-in-6 skills, but that's just one example).
My group started with 2nd Edition AD&D and continued until the series was bought by WotC. By that time, I had about a 2 foot stack of AD&D books. I remember those books as being very poorly made, they started coming apart almost immediately.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
That poor binding began back in the 1E era, at least for a few of the books. My Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures books (1985) both have loose pages in them, while my Player's Handbook, Deities and Demigods, Fiend Folio, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide, all of which pre-date those two books, are holding together fine. They definitely took a cheap route.
2E was also famous for reusing art that had appeared in other books. I don't think the main core rule books reused art, but the soft-cover Complete Guides definitely did!
Been starting to collect all th Ad&d books and modules. How much would you say the value of the white box be? Would love to get my hands on it
Oh wow... that's a difficult question to answer because there are quite a few different printings of that, and of course the later printings are not *quite* as expensive as the earlier ones (even though the content is almost all the same). But that said, over the past ~10 years, the prices for any out-of-print D&D stuff has skyrocketed.
Your best bet is Ebay to try to get a deal, but I would check places like Noble Knight Games, Wayne's Books, and DEI Dungeon on the Internet, to see how they are pricing them. Also check Acaeum to see which printing you're looking for.
My box is sadly what's known as a "Frankenstein." You can see it most clearly in my most recent video on Firearms, where I hold up the three little books, and you can see the middle one is a different shade of tan as the other 2. My mom got me this box as a gift from my local game store back in the late 90's or early 2000's, but it was missing Book 2: Monsters & Treasure, so later, the store tracked me down a separate copy, but it's a different printing from Book 1 and Book 3 in that set.
All that said... You're probably looking at ~$500, and earlier printing and/or better quality (very fine+ or Near Mint) can get close to $1000. But, there are deals. I just saw one where the asking price was only $200 and it sold for an undisclosed offer (which presumedly was less).
I’d love to have all those original booklets, supplements, and white box.
I was very lucky to get my White Box. I can't remember if I mentioned it in the video, but I first discovered Original D&D at a friend's house about 2-3 years after I was introduced to Moldvay B/X. He had a really janky beat up copy of Greyhawk: Supplement I that he didn't want any more, so he gave it to me. And then a few weeks later, I saw a near-mint copy of Blackmoor: Supplement II at my local hobby store, for cover price of $5.00. I had those for nearly 15 years before my mom gave me a White Box as a Birthday Gift. She'd gone to my local game store, and asked them what a good gift idea would be for me. They had just got this copy of the White Box in and they knew I'd like it. Years later, I got Eldritch Wizardry and Gods, Demigods, and Heroes, just to complete the set.
I'm not sure if my mom hadn't bought it for me way back then if I'd ever had gotten a copy.
Those original rule books were letter sized paper folded in half. A copier and a stapler let you produce a book. (Not sure if they were copier or print machine produced though). Man, so many of those things I had back in the day - but I let them slip out of my hands over the years as I kept 'up-dating' and moving around.
Ah yes, you're right about the size! I should've been more clear in my description. Thanks! And thanks for watching and commenting!
Sorry you lost your books... that's tough.
Played 3.5 with the neighbourhood kids in the late 2000's/early 2010's. My mom ended up getting me 4th edition and it seemed so strange to us that we just kept playing 3.5! This help put my timeline in perspective. Love the content
I'm glad it helped, and I really appreciate you watching and commenting!
Yes, the transition from 3.5 to 4E is probably the most drastic in the history of edition changes for the game.
The first 3e players handbook came with a character builder cd.
That's right! I had completely forgotten! My 3E books have been out in the garage since around the time 3.5 came out, as I was out of shelf-space, but I recently brought them back inside due to making all these videos. I just double-checked and my 3E Player's Handbook still has the CD on the inside back cover. I don't think I ever even took it out!
I started on the red box basic D&D, had the rules cyclopedia (still regret selling that) and still have my 2nd edition books. Looking to get back in, I think i'll grab me an updated set of rulebooks. Exciting.
That's amazing! I hope you do start up a new game, and I look forward to hearing about it here in the comments if you're willing to share. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 thank you! cheers to you as well.
I had not realized until now that there were 3 different versions of "Basic" floating around over the 10+ year period! Good information on that! Also it is quite humorous to me to hear people talk about 1e AD&D as being 'easy to understand' or 'rules-light' / lmao!!! After 40 years of DM'ing it I still find stuff out that I don't know (or, more recently, have forgotten!). Keep up the good work, this helps our kids & grandkids understand a little better how the hobby developed/grew in our old 'real time' selves' lives! One topic folks (even my age) are shakey on is what collections of magazines there are which are now archived, free to use (providing you're not making money off them), and where they're available at! Dragon, Dungeon, "And" magazine, and others are all excellent resources that can be used for ALL editions, and SHOULD be used for years to come! You might want to do a shortie on those resources & where to find them . J
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I definitely think Advanced D&D is pretty complicated. It doesn't have feats and skills (unless you use Non-Weapon Proficiencies from later-era 1E) but it compensates with obscure rules like Weapon Speed Factors and Weapons vs AC tables. We *never* used that stuff back in the day! Too complicated!
I love Dragon magazine and began subscribing with issue #90 and kept that subscription up until the last print issue, #359. And I have maybe 30-40 issues prior to #90 that I purchased off the shelf. I'll definitely cover Dragon in a future video. And yes, there were a ton of other magazines and zines at the dawn of the hobby. I'll look into putting that all together. Thanks!
I was really into advanced D&D back in 1985-1987. But my oldest cousin who acted as "DM" began to play fewer and fewer campaigns as were getting into high school, and then we just stopped :( At the peak of our playing I really enjoyed reading the modules we'd get at The Rusty Scabbard (store in Lexington, KY) and learning about what I could possibly get on my adventure, lol. There was even a 2-day period (over a weekend) where my youngest cousin and I stayed up for almost TWO DAY STRAIGHT playing D&D and trying to make our own "monster manual" :D
EDIT: The last character I ever had was a 31st level Fighter/Magic User/Thief combo.
31st level?!?!?! Impressive!
I never really played high-level games with my DMs back in the day, and even currently the highest I've gone is 20th. I never played Epic Level, etc.
Thank you so much for sharing your early memories of playing the game. I always love hearing other peoples' stories!
Great video can’t wait to see more channel content like this. Summoning Salt for D&D is a great niche :)
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for watching and commenting. Cheers!
This is all so interesting! As someone who had only experience with ADnD through computer games, what with living in non-Western country and all, I saw some games that claimed to be DnD and having "race as class", yes, and some games being "ADnD" and being other way around... So, I believed that basically "race-as-class" DnD was simply the Old DnD, before "Advanced", and THEN it was improved upon.
I could not even guessed then that there is such a convoluted and tragic story, with Gary going all chaotic evil (or is it neutral evil?) on royalties and pushing Dave out of profits on what they created together, and creating parallel branches of the same game for this reason.
(I think it's rather chaotic evil, because blatant lies about ADnD having no relation to DnD is an act of lying, which is chaotic, and being so selfish is inherently evil, with evil being defined "caring for your own self-interest to the detriment of others". But in any case, it's chaotic evil "act", not the claim that of such a disposition was "the person" himself, on a permanent basis.)
I'm so glad you found my channel and this video to help you sort out all the differences.
Thank you for sharing this, and for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1I'm very glad too, your channel is a veritable treasure trove of "archeological" information about DnD. I don't know, maybe because of computer RPGs, but I've always been fascinated by old DnD editions, 2nd and the like, even when DnD has already arrived to where I live and it was 3.5 edition already, so that's what everyone was playing. But I still wondered - "who is Mordenkainen or Bigby? Where are they from? Are they friends to Khelben and Elminster or not?". It is a bit like mystery novel or a fairy tale, when you feel that the world contains more mysterious things than what is shown to you. Thanks to your channel, I get to know all of that! I also like QuestingBeast channel, he dives a lot into this old DnD stuff, too.
Someone should make an infographic on all these versions 😅
That would be amazing! I bet the type would be really small so it's difficult to read, and then the creator would forget to put any attribution on the first attempt he made so folks post it without realizing who created it! 😀
I'd love to know how many copies of M & I were sold and how many groups actually played them. I've never seen either in the wild and never met anyone who played them. Seems like B, E, and C to a lesser extent, covered pretty much 99.9% of groups' needs as far as playing "Basic" went. We used B & E quite a lot and C a little bit now and then.
Yes, I don't get the impression that many folks played past 25th level (Companion) but I have "met" a few folks on Twitter who went all the way to Immortal status and I've chatted with them about their games. But I don't think it was very common!
When they revised that edition into the Rules Cyclopedia, they eliminated the Immortals rules from it, and I think that might have been just because they weren't as popular.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 There's a noticeable tone shift in the Masters and Immortals box sets where it seems to shift from being a game about a group of characters and more about individual characters. I never played a group campaign past Companion, but played several long-running 1-on-1 games with my best friend where we'd DM for each other's high level solo characters up to and including Immortal. I've no idea if that was common, but the writing of the box sets made it seem a very natural progression.
Hi, I have the Dungeon & Dragons 3 volume set shown in the video with 3 books and in the box there is also a reference sheet that I didn't see in the video, as well as a poster and an invoice for when it was purchased. However, I would like to know how much it is worth? Can you help me? Because it is 5 pounds it was in a store and I bought it.
Hello there! I have the reference sheets in my box and I show them in another video (I forget which one off the top of my head) but they were definitely part of the original box. As far as a poster, I'm not aware of any boxed set of the original game that included a poster inside. What's the poster look like? If you can describe it, that might help.
As far as what it's worth, if you have a White Box (like mine) that says "Original Collector's Edition" and the books inside are all intact and in good shape AND all belong to the same printing (that is, unlike my box which is a "Frankenstein" version because my Vol. I and Volume III are different printings from my Volume II) then it could be worth several hundreds of dollars. The Dragon Trove is selling a White Box right now for $900 and there's at least one on Ebay for $750.
I would suggest checking with Acaeum to see which version you have: www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/original.html
Hope that helps!
@@daddyrolleda1 thank you for the answer, I looked at what you sent, there is also the one with a magician in a white box and the collector's edition is on it, there are 5 things in it, 3 booklets and the 4th is the reference sheet and also the poster, I think, which is folded in half, which has something on both sides, one on one side, a dragon's head on the other side advertises a different game, is it possible that this was only for the collector's edition? However, the invoice also includes when and where it was purchased.
My two favorite editions are the two extremely different ones. I live BECMI for its simplicity and exploration and I love 4e for its tactical combat and build crafting. Both are excellent and appeal to different gaming desires/interests that I have.
I like that you can appreciate each edition for what they are and how they work. I think 4E gets a bad rap and also believe it would've performed much better in the market if it had been offered as a tactical war game instead of labeled as "D&D." There's an expectation of what D&D is/does and 4E didn't really deliver that, but what it *did* do, it was good at.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
@daddyrolleda1 I agree completely.
Never heard of TCoE book being referred as D&D 5.5 tough.
Yeah, a few folks have mentioned that. I have in various gaming circles, though, and wanted to include it to make sure I was covering all my bases.
The 1983 basic set edition all the way. Good times.
That was probably the most "popular" (in terms of sales) Basic edition! I never got it since I already had Moldvay and had "moved on" to AD&D to by the time it came out, but I've met so many people for whom that was their introduction to D&D.
The 3.0 Edition PHB was written by Johnathan Tweet who co-authored the Ars Magica game with Mark Rein*Hagen (the later creator of Vampire the Masquerade). The core Mechanic of 3.0 and all future editions is the Ars Magica mechanic, except using a Characteristic + Ability + 1d10 roll against an Ease Factor set by the Storyguide. Characteristics are the Ability Scores of Ars Magica and ranged from -5 to +5 (instead of 3 to 18). The abilities (Skills) for 3.0 were a mixture of 2nd Edition and Ars Magica lists, some of which were lifted word for word from AM 3rd Edition. And the "iconic" Rage ability of Barbarian (which did not exist in Unearthed Arcana/Oriental Adventures) was a +1 Physical Virtue called "Berserk" in which you gained a "+2 on Damage, Soak, and Fatigue scores, but suffer a -2 penalty on Defense." And the Reputation system inspired the same system in Star Wars d20/Modern d20. I have argued with OSR people before because tI've heard a few people say that the ability bonus feature came from D&D, which I will admit would have been an inspiration to make 1st/2nd AD&D bonus more accessible, but that ultimately Tweet chose his AM system instead.
I love 4e, it is actually my favorite version of D&D by narrowly edging out the Rules Cyclopedia. Also, in response to the "Pathfinder outsold 4e" comment, yes, it did for a brief window of time when WotC had stopped production of 4e and was working on D&D Next (which evolved into 5e). There are some people who had worked at both WotC and Paizo who have come forward saying that, based on the sales reports they were seeing, at no time while 4e was in active production did Pathfinder outsell 4e (it did do incredibly well, no hate on Pathfinder here since I also love that edition). Pathfinder's entry into the market was also very controversial and they almost got sued for using advertising that very clearly billed itself as just a continuation of 3.5 but they did drop that specific line fairly quickly.
Thanks so much for watching and commenting! I appreciate it.
I've had fun playing pretty much all editions of D&D (I have yet to actually play OD&D, Holmes, or 2E) and while I never ran or played in a campaign with 4E, I did play in a few one-shots and had a great time. I think ultimately it was just *too* different and folks weren't ready for that, especially after 3E opened the doors for 3rd party publishers to create content. I have thousands of dollars worth of 3.X stuff that wasn't really usable with 4E and I wasn't ready to let that investment go, so I made the switch to Pathfinder since it was all largely compatible.
Thanks for your insider info on sales - it was reported so much in the press that Pathfinder was outselling 4E and I didn't realize that didn't happen until WotC had moved to work on D&D Next and stopped actively promoting 4E. That's really interesting!
Cheers!
I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of 4e, it's probably my most played edition since I got years of weekly games out of it with my brother and High School Friends. Granted, after I discovered Retroclones (Let alone WotC putting up PDFs of older editions, often for cheap) and the world discovered 5e (No hate on 5e, I like it...mostly...it's just difficult to get a group together for BECMI or 1e...), I fear 4e is just going to be a Character-focused miniatures-skirmish game for me...but I still like the edition.
@@SwordlordRoy I think whatever edition one starts with is bound to instill a sense of nostalgia but also, there's no denying it's fun because it's your first! It's a new world of fun to explore. 4E has a lot of ardent fans and I think if it had tried to embrace what it was doing instead of trying to position it as just "another edition of D&D" it could've been a lot more successful.
@@daddyrolleda1 I fear 3.5 was my first edition, with 3.0 being the first I ran...experience was poor for the most part, the edition wasn't conducive to self-teaching, and the only truly experienced player we had was more interested in exploiting the newbie DM than helping.
@@SwordlordRoy Oh no! I'm sorry you had a bad experience at your first outing with the hobby.
3.X is very complex, as you well know by now, and I can see it being difficult to learn especially if you have no familiarity with TTRPGs and are trying to learn solely from reading the book.
And, it is also very conducive for players who strive for "system mastery" vs just enjoying the game. I have never played that way, but I know a lot of folks who enjoy being able to exploit loopholes to create characters that are ultra-powerful. I have a player like that in the 3.5 game I'm currently still running (started with 3E back in May 2001 and the campaign is still going). He loves being able to combine race-class-feats-magic in ways I as the DM would never think of, so that few things challenge him. I find it frustrating, but it's how he derives enjoyment from the game.
artwork on eldritch wizardry cover is quite metal
Indeed! Quite risque for the time and the only cover they did like this, as far as I remember. I know there was nudity in the interior art of the Monster Manual but that went away pretty quickly and later books didn't have that.
I can't post the image here, but in Appendix N, Gary Gygax mentions "Dwellers in the Mirage" by A. Merritt as an inspirational book. Take a look at this cover: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwellers_in_the_Mirage
I am amazed you have the old _Eldritch Wizardry_ volume.
I was very lucky to discovered some of those early supplements back in the early 80's when they were much more readily available and without a huge mark-up. I bought my Blackmoor supplement around 1983 or 1984 right off the shelf at my game store for cover price of $5.00. That copy of Eldritch Wizardry originally belonged to a friend back then who didn't want it any more.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I hope you continue to enjoy the channel.
I like to use race as class in AD&D if someone wants to play something off the wall or weird. One time I made up a baboon class as a joke. Someone said that a baboon would be smarter than someone with a 3 Int so I went for it lol. I used it as a NPC. This way you don't have to come up with everything for a creature can it be a thief? Can it be a wizard? just give it set skills and an XP chart and you are good to go
Such a great idea! I like this approach! Thanks for sharing, and for watching and commenting!
Wonderful. Thank you so much I would love to hear you speak about all of the little details with the rules between each editions. I know, that would be quite the undertaking. But generally speaking, you know, the big stuff. Maybe not even all in one video but moving from edition to edition.
Anyway, loved hearing what you had to say 😊
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
I will definitely add this to a "potential future topics" video - you're not the first to ask!
@@daddyrolleda1 haha glad I am not the only one. Definitely enjoying all of what you have done thus far. Will be supporting you from here on out. Thank you for your work!
I really appreciate that!
Holmes Basic is my favorite in terms of scope and presentation (I think a level cap of 3 is pretty reasonable), 2nd Edition's conscious _dropping_ of Barbarians, Monks, and Assassins from the main book was all positive in my book and wish they'd dropped Druids while they were at it and prefer not having Demons and Devils explicitly called such if they're going to differ from real world Christian theology. 5e is probably my favorite in terms of overall mechanics, so finding a way to crunch that into Holmes Basic's scope would be my ideal.
Thank you so much for sharing your TTRPG journey and commenting on the different editions! I love these kinds of comments because I find it interesting to know how other people view the different editions and what their pros and cons are.
I'm still of the mind that a barbarian doesn't really need to be a separate class. It's just a fighter, but roleplayed differently. The one thing that does give me pause, though, is the armor issue. One of a fighter's main class features is being able to use all heavy armor, and barbarians don't typically wear that kind of armor, so making a conscious choice not to use one of your only class features is a bit of a difficult pill to swallow. I do think that they could be handled more like the 2E Kits or 5E Backgrounds, though. A Fighter type with a selection of Kits: Knight, Barbarian, Soldier, etc. could work.
I currently run B/X but I use a lot of stuff from other editions (like Kits, which I call "Class Concepts" - there are a bunch of my blog, but at that time I was calling them "Subclasses"), Advantage/Disadvantage, and I do sometimes incorporate standard "modern" D20 checks versus the old-school roll-under ability checks. Like you said, taking stuff and adding it to older editions.
Thanks again!
@@daddyrolleda1 The armor issue is of course not a conceptual issue for Conan himself (who wore armor of various types in the books) or just a more coherent system for how damage, Dexterity bonuses, and armor interact. Like if heavy armor was _generally_ a bigger net positive, most warriors would opt for it but if there was a risk/reward to it (_taking_ more damage when not armored but it being easier to dodge, or your Movement in combat being higher without armor, or even having bonuses on your attack rolls) as various other games have experimented with over the decades, that could be a system-wide feature that Fighters are simply better at taking advantage of.
My opinion of the Monk is that "martial artist" as an archetype is _also_ just a flavor of Fighter, but one that focuses less on equipment and more on technique. Basically, the Fighter would be the base class and Barbarian and Monk would be subclasses much like the Champion, Eldritch Knight, and Battlemaster.
@@RoninCatholic All great ideas!
as someone from Germany this history of D&D is kinda interesting since over here D&D wasn't that successful or big. Yes the red box i guess some other boxes after that were translated and some adventures but since TSR wanted a higher license payment from Schmidt Spiele (THE biggest board game producer/publisher at that time) Schmidt spiele made a bold move by telling "well we not paying and we will make a game that surpasses yours". So the translators of the game (Ulrich Kiesow and Werner Fuchs and some others) had to quickly made a new Roleplaying System just in time for the Nürnberger Toy Fair in 1984 so they had roughly a month for the rules to be completly different as from D&D. They called it DAS SCHWARZE AUGE / The Dark eye and made the usual boxes and had several adventures for groups and solo adventures ready when the game launched. In a move only Schmidt Spiele could do they kinda forced the stores to stock Das Schwarze Auge or they will not get any boardgames froM Schmidt Spiele and other stuff from them. So you basically found the box in EVERY toy store or ANY store which had some stuff from Schmidt Spiele. Das Schwarze Auge wasn't the first german RPG on the market but the most successful meaning that for most players around the 80s and even mid 90s RPG was "playing Das schwarze Auge". The D&D Editions were translated but... not as wide spread. Meaning you only found them in special gaming stores. For example i never saw the D&D 3 Books anywere in my region (only in larger cities in special gaming stores) but you could find the 3rd Edition base Box of Das Schwarze Auge almost everywhere together with other expansion boxes and a FULL range of adventures (and yeah DSA has PLENTY of them). That changed with 5e though since the rules for DSA got more detailed and complicated starting from DSA 4 onwards....which is good if you like a detailed system were you potentially can create THE character and have several fighting manveuvers and stuff.... but is also clunky.
Thank you so much for sharing this info! I know next to nothing about non-USA RPGs, so this information was all new to me. Thank you! I appreciate you sharing your experiences. And thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 my pleasure :-)
My first real contact with the (ADnD) rules was with Baldurs Gate and the Diablo 2 boardgame (ans I didn't like the rules tbh) from 3rd edition I didn't get anything. Even the conventions I visited didn't offer any DND play rounds only Das schwarze Auge especially during 4th edition (around 2004) it was HUGE
That changed now since 5e is so popular so more players get into RPGs with DND and not with DSA
@@daddyrolleda1 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Eye
Also the setting has a metaplot for over 30 years now ;-) and major points are adventures
Been enjoying these history vids quite a bit. So many things I did not know about the game. It's nice to have more insight on the reasons behind all the various versions.
Quick question that you might have an answer for. I have a copy of the D&D basic box set (normally has a 1001 in upper right corner of the cover). I think the copy I have is a very early version as it has F115-R in the upper right corner of the box instead, even though the rest of the box looks the same. It came with some odd stuff besides the 2001 rulebook and B1 adventure. Tiny metal mini's, dice, dungeon geomorphs, maybe more that are not in the box anymore. Anyway, was wondering if you had heard of/seen such a box? I got this from a relative that worked at the place where they were printed, along with a lot of the other stuff back in the late 70's/early 80's.
Did a little searching, looks like f115-R is first printing. Source did not tell how many were printed though. Anyways, good to know. I could send you an image of the box if you ever want to put it in a video.
Yes, I'd love a picture! Thank you! Based on my understanding, your box (at least, if not also the rest of the contents) is either a "True First" print or a "First Printing" partially based on the F115-R numbering on the box. You can tell the differences between those two versions by the bottom of the box - the "True First" bottom is just white, whereas the First Printing lists the contents.
Both of those printings also would have had "Dungeon Geomorphs Set 1" and "Monsters & Treasure Assortment Set 1" and both would have been first printings.
However, if your rulebook has a "2001" code on it, then that's a 2nd or later printing of the rulebook but put inside a True First or First Printing box. Some will have a Lizard Logo and say "Second Print, Jan 1978" on the inside cover, while others will say "Third Print, May 1978". Still others will have a Wizard Logo and say "Second Edition, Nov 1978" or "Third Edition, Dec 1979."
Interestingly, if you *also* have a copy of B1: In Search of the Unknown, that was likely added later, as that adventure wasn't included with the boxed set until the 4th Printing, at which point it replaced the Dungeon Geomorphs and the Monster & Treasure Assortment.
Based on all this, it sounds like you have what some industry folks would call a "Frankenstein Version" as it includes contents from different printings in the same box. My Original D&D "White Box" is the same way - my Monsters & Treasure assortment is a different printing from "Men & Magic" and "Wilderness & Underwater Adventures."
@@daddyrolleda1 I need to find the original rules insert that came in the box. I have a 2001 one I picked up on ebay in there for now. My brother might have that, but if so he might have thrown it away a long time ago. What you say about the "Monsters and Treasure Assortment" is true as well, I have it but am not 100% certain that it came in the box. Lastly, sadly the bottom of the box is not white, it has printing on it. If I do find that rules insert I hope it has Hobbits in it, but sounds like probably not. Not certain how to post images on you tube, but will gladly send you a picture of the box. I guess it is possible that my relative who worked where they were printed just cobbled together a box from spare parts as well.
Update: the bottom of the box seems to show what is in it: dice (picture does not match the set I have), rulebook (which in the image says F115-R), Monster and treasure assortment, and the geomorphs. Going to check my dice pile to see if I can find the originals. The ones I thought came with it are a pasty light blue color. Anyway, thanks again.
Final update: found your email and images have been sent. Have a good one.
19:08 I have to correct you here, it does not say 3rd Edition. WotC never called it that, he community did. We were saying 3rd edition as soon as rumors of new edition being in the works started.
This is entirely due to AD&D 2nd Edition, which we just called 2nd edition. As you should know.
The real reason for dropping the Advanced appellation is that WotC had finally settled the decades old legal battle with Dave Arneson over royalties for D&D, so there was no longer a need to maintain the pretext that AD&D was a different game and just use Dungeons and Dragons (better for a number of reasons).
All good points. Thanks for sharing them. As I was making the video I was looking at the 3E Player's Handbook and noticed it didn't say the edition on the cover and I wondered if I was misremembering. I was playing at the time (I worked on the advertising for Wizards of the Coast during the 3E era and we all referred to it internally at 3E) but I actually didn't realize that the 3E name was one "created" by the community. That's a cool piece of trivia.
@@daddyrolleda1 I don't know if the community created it, per se, but anyone playing D&D would have thought of it that way. I think it's safe to say Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D Third Edition News site was the nexus of it.
The reason the revision was actually named 3.5 was because the periodicals team was using it for their coverage and it stuck and became official.
All of the edition numbers people throw around now revolve around AD&D 2nd ed and it would be all but impossible to get people to change. The only likely to work is if WotC named the next edition 7th and referred to previous editions based on that.
@@Welverin I was a huge fan of EN World and spent many hours at "work" reading and commenting on the message boards there. It was a primary reason for me getting more involved in the hobby and for "meeting" (virtually) Matt Sprange from Mongoose Publishing and him agreeing to publish my "Quintessential Aristocrat" book.
And, yes, I'm aware that with the creation of Advanced D&D: 2nd Edition, then the official numbering of 3.5, 4th, and 5th, that the numbering is "off" which was one of the reasons for me creating this video.
Another reason is that I'm currently running a Moldvay Basic game (aka "B/X") for my 13yo daughter and her friends, and when I write about it on Twitter, I constantly have to write out that entire phrase (I can't just say "Basic D&D" or "1981 Basic"), and even writing out the entire thing, I've encountered many people who have no idea what I'm talking about. They've never heard of "Basic" D&D and didn't realize it was an official edition and that if I create content for Basic, it will still be semi-related and compatible with other editions.
Bought that box set for my friend back in high school for his birthday
Thanks for watching and commenting! Which boxed set? I assume the White Box?
@@daddyrolleda1 that’s the one. He was our dm and collected everything dnd but didn’t have those original books
@@brennonr What an awesome gift that was!
I got mine because my mom went to our local game store in the early 2000's. I'd been shopping there for a while and they knew my name. She popped in and asked them what a good gift would be for my birthday, and they had just gotten one of these boxed sets in and she bought it for me. It was missing Monsters & Treasure, but had a copy of Chainmail included. Years later, they found a copy of Monsters and Treasure they gave me, but it's a different printing from the other 2 books in my set. I believe the trade refers to that as a "Frankenstein" box, but I still love it.
2E still the best.
Yeah, no it wasn't. ADnD was the best. Those books were a portal to a new world. Everything was still new and unknown. 2E, you knew what to expect. 🙃
Navigating the utter chaos of early D&D editions without the internet, or with very early internet, must have been a hell of a time. :p
It was definitely a "wild west" time. The way most folks handled it, as I recall from the time, was either via Dragon magazine, or to just ignore it completely and mix-and-match stuff as we wanted!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I've played 4th a few hours, then went 5th for years. Pulled my 4th PHB to skim. Couldn't comprehend it as D&D...
There is one more "2.5e" book you didn't cover - the DM's Option High Level Campaigns book
Thanks for watching and commenting.
Yes, I know, and I figured sooner or later someone would jump in to mention it. There was only so much time (and space!) I had, and I already felt the video was getting too long, and I also felt that in terms of rules CHANGES, the Player's Options changed more vs the DM's Option book. But, good catch!
@@daddyrolleda1 actually 2 more: The Revised 2nd edition Player's Handbook with a black cover the same as the options books.
I started in 1992 with my dad and his friends. They played a hybrid of 1st and 2nd edition, but it was all the same to me. I played in that game for years and then jumped into 3rd edition in my teenage years, playing with just my friends. 3.5 dropped around the time I graduated high school and started college, so that seems to be my sweet spot for nostalgia because I feel like I had the best times playing that edition and being really into the tabletop gaming scene. 4th edition came out the year my daughter was born. My wife and I, along with our friends, embraced the new changes that were made to the game, and to this day it’s my favorite edition of D&D. We really love tactical combat on a grid with miniatures so this edition was perfect for my group. Then 5th edition came along and we played that for awhile but quickly went back to playing older editions because we didn’t really enjoy it all that much. Since then I’ve retroactively played B/X and the retro clones that were inspired by it. I really love Old School Essentials for when I need that B/X fix, but my group and I are currently playing a 4th edition campaign that we started in the spring of 2022.
Thank you so much for watching, and also for sharing your TTRPG story! I love hearing about peoples' D&D journey!
Your daughter was born around the same time as mine! (Although I'm quite a bit older than you based on 3.5 coming out when you were in high school!).
I'm happy to hear of your love for 4E. I tried it a few times for one-shots and enjoyed it, but I was deep into a 3.X game that began in 2001 (still running! We're using a mix of 3.5 & Pathfinder 1E now) and didn't really want to change my game. I'm also *not* much of a tactical minis/map based combat guy. I prefer theater-of-the-mind. But I get tired of people bashing 4E.
I'm running B/X (using Old School Essentials) for my daughter and her friends now (just had a game this past Saturday!) and having a blast!
1E Unearthed Arcana, most of the stuff in it were from Dragon articles.
I remember! I had the Dragons with the Thief-Acrobat, the Cavalier, most of the spells/cantrips, the new racial limits for Demi-Humans, and much more. The main thing I was missing was Dragon #63, with the Barbarian, which I searched for forever but could never find in a store. So I was excited to get the book for that reason.
I've never heard that tasha is refered to as 5.5..
Some folks do, and some don't. I've heard it quite a few times.
Thanks for the video!
Thanks for watching and commenting, Mark! I really appreciate it! Cheers!
Not a bad breakdown. Here's the breakdown of editions over the year that popped into my mind just seeing the title of the video:
Chainmail fantasy supplement with man-to-man rules
OD&D
OD&D w/ Greyhawk and later OD&D supplements.
Holmes edit of Basic
AD&D
Basic/Expert
AD&D Surivial Guide Era (Non Weapon Profficiences rules are common)
Basic/Expert/Companion/Master& Immortal
Second edition.
Rules Cyclopedia.
Black Box Basic
AD&D 2nd edition players option series (2.5)
Dragonfist (a lot of people forget this ever existed or never knew about it at all)
3rd edition
3.5 edition
4th edition
5th edition
Thanks - my list matches up pretty closely with yours, although I didn't include Chainmail (I have a copy stuck in my White Box but I was trying to keep strictly to games with "Dungeons & Dragons" as part of the name - but I understand why you included it, although if I included that, I'd probably also include Blackmoor).
I *did* forget about Dragonfirst - I stumbled across that one in the 3E era when I saw Chris Pramas share a link to a PDF download in a forum (probably on ENWorld). Nice call that you remembered it!
I counted post-UA as "1.5" but yeah, I could see using Non-Weapon Proficiencies as the dividing line (although those appeared in Oriental Adventures, which pre-dated both Survival Guides).
I added the Classic D&D Game, 4th Edition Essentials, and post-Tasha's as well, but honestly our lists are very, very close - that's very impressive for doing that off the top of your head! I had to look through my collection and make notes on the editions I don't have. I definitely would have forgotten the Black Box (I barely remember that one) or the Classic D&D game had I not done a bit of research to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
@@daddyrolleda1 oh that makes perfect sense, I just read the title of the video and typed out my list and then watched the video to see if my recollection would mesh.
@@semajsivraj I just realized that I've been chatting with you on Facebook! 😊I think it's cool that our lists synced up pretty closely. Cheers!
Black Box D&D preceded the Rules Cyclopedia by about 6 months, so your list isn't ordered correctly. A few different versions of 2e are missing as well.
@@Dave_L I think that was pretty impressive for coming up with that list off the top of his head.
How many versions of 2E do you include? I know they revised the covers at one point but I wouldn't include that as a different edition. Besides the initial release, Player's Option, and Dragonfist (which I didn't include in my list since it wasn't released publicly), what else do you think counts as a version of 2e?
Interesting note, the Monster Manual uses the 5-point alignment from Holmes and not the 9-point from AD&D. Also, the armor class is from OD&D and Holmes, it is on a base 9 and not 10.
Yes exactly! I recorded several versions of this video and in one of them I started to talk about the differences and specifically mentioned the Holmes 5-point alignment system vs OD&D 3-point and post-MM 1E 9-point. But it was getting too long and into the weeds, so I just said "the alignment system was different across all three editions..."
That's also why I mentioned the 1st Edition Monster Manual was a weird situation because it was created for a game that technically didn't exist yet (Advanced D&D) and so people used it with both OD&D and Holmes Basic even though, as you point out, the rules don't always work together!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 The rules aren't all that different. You mentioned movement (or was it distances?) AC is a one number difference so that's fairly negligible. I do find the history of our hobby interesting in regards to these releases. Thanks for making the video!
@@michaelwallace6851 Yeah, you're right - I did mention either movement or distance, as I was thinking about (I think) Moldvay Basic vs Holmes. In any event, yes, they're very compatible despite a few differences.
I'm glad you liked the video! I'll be posting another video next week. Still thinking of what the topic will be!
@@daddyrolleda1 I also would argue that from 3e and newer are completely different games. Editions are OD&D through AD&D 2.5e since they are all 95% compatible. With 3e, backwards compatibility is gone, hence it is a new game and not a new edition.
@@michaelwallace6851 That is definitely a common view in the community especially among folks who started playing pre-3E. I do think the DNA is still there (class-and-level system, same six ability scores, roll high to hit, AC, saving throws, racial abilities, etc.). There's a lot that is similar but the switch to a unified mechanic in 3E definitely changed things as did the increase in power levels and of course Ascending AC. I think of all the editions, 4E is the outlier in terms of just how different and incompatible it is with the rest. For 5E, while I don't play it, I have a few 3rd party 5E supplements and I've been able to convert them on-the-fly for the B/X game I run for my daughter. I just ignore feats and stuff and dial down the power levels. But I do see your point: I think pre-3E is more about "adventurers" whereas post 3E is about "heroes."
Very thorough, great job!
Thank you! I appreciate you watching and commenting!
I started in the early 80s with ad&d. I had the MM, FF and deities and demi gods ( cuthulu edition ).
Hello! Nice "meeting" you on @DMTales earlier today. Thanks for watching that video and asking your questions (I remember your Cheese Guild...). And, thank you very much for watching and commenting on this video. Great to have you here. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 thank you. Your subject matter is right up my alley.
Glad to hear it!
I guess I actually played 3rd edition a couple times. However 5e is where I really got into RPGs. I do remember as a kid going into comic/game shops and seeing all those rulebooks and liking the covers. Damn I wish I had got into it sooner.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it.
I can understanding wishing you'd started sooner, but I say just focus on the fun times you're having now! Cheers!
Hi ! Did Dave Arneson received royalties on all basic version of the games or just the one from Holmes ? Thank you
Hello!
Following a March 1981 settlement between Arneson and Gygax/TSR, Dave was listed as a co-creator on D&D products (along with Gygax) and he received royalties on all D&D products (including Advanced D&D) going forward. Since Moldvay Basic came out in 1981 (although I can't find the *month* of release) and Mentzer Basic came out in 1983, those would have been included in the new arrangement.
@@daddyrolleda1 Thanks for the info Martin...I learn a lot from your channel
@@yanc4577 I'm happy to hear that! Thank you!
Crazy to think that it took 36+ levels to become a god, while in 5e you start to feel like a Greek god at level 10+ and at level 20, coupled with powerful gear, you start to feel like a god.
The power creep has definitely occurred over the years, although the power of the monsters and various challenges has increased as well. Mathematically, it all works out roughly the same. You can spend all the time in the world to craft a super awesome min-maxed PC in 3.5 or 5E, but when you're fighting a bunch of monsters, your chances of hitting and killing the monsters is roughly the same. It just seems like you're doing more damage but when the HP of the monsters has increased also, it's all relative!
Pretty sure (from memory, so might be wrong) that's a holdover from the fact that Red Box had a level 36 cap in the experience tables and 1e AD&D had level 20 so people calibrated accordingly. Modern D&D rules lineage and the official campaign settings most directly stem from AD&D, so the level 20 range was the one that was retained. Certainly The Forgotten Realms box set had level 20 as near-godlike.