#original d&d

[pulpsandcomics2]

1979 boxed set

[bonkposting]

deciphering the ancient texts trying to figure out how large the hexes on this map are

[mrmagusjester]

Everything weird or underbaked about modern D&D is explained by old editions

Over the years, D&D has accumulated a significant number of tropes and iconic features. However, each new edition has a different mechanical focus and objective. This means that, as certain iconic features get translated into successive editions, they have to be warped and altered in order to fit into the new rules. This results in some parts of D&D persisting despite there being no real reason for them to be part of the rules, and being written in ways that make brand-new players question why they're even there in the first place.

One of the biggest offenders in this regard is the encumbrance system. In the earliest editions of D&D, the game was first and foremost a dungeon crawler. The "objective" of the game was, at least as far as Gary Gygax intended, to explore dungeons in search of treasure and magic items. In fact, the main way you got XP in these editions was by recovering treasure, with each gp worth of treasure you brought back giving you 1 XP (the XP you got from defeating monsters was far less). Thus, the game needed a way to determine how much of that treasure you could carry back out of the dungeon, hence the encumbrance system.

Furthermore, the fact that the game was about dungeon crawling meant you would need rules for the resources you brought with you into the dungeon: Torches and lanterns only last so long, so you'll need to bring backup light sources. Traveling to the dungeon could take time, so you'd need rations and water to last you there and back again. And so forth.

However, in modern D&D games like 5th edition, you earn XP primarily for defeating monsters. Thus, it's not usually necessary to carry a bunch of treasure back out of the dungeon. Gold itself simply has far less use in modern games too, unless your DM is kind enough to let you spend it on magic items (in old editions, there were baked-in rules for hiring NPCs as retainers, mercenaries, henchmen, etc., and other "gold sinks" like building strongholds). Almost every spellcaster will have some way to create fire or light at will, so you don't usually need to carry extra torches or lantern oil. And it's very easy to create food and water using magic, not to mention the extremely forgiving foraging rules. And to top it all off, the main rules for encumbrance are super lenient, allowing you to carry all your gear and wear heavy armour at no penalty. Thus, it's very rare for players of 5e or 5.5e to even so much as look at the encumbrance rules, because why would they?

And encumbrance is just one of these "defunct" rules still present in modern D&D for legacy's sake, though I would say it's probably the biggest offender in this regard. But even things like the adventuring gear list — how often do you utilize most of that stuff in a campaign, beyond 2nd level or so? Alignment, with all the discussion surrounding it, is another relic of the prior ages. Back in the older editions, alignment was well-integrated into the game's systems, with several spells and magic items having effects based on alignments. Sure, it may not have been any less controversial even back then (I wouldn't know), but the game's designers at least included it in the rules for a reason. It actually originated in Chainmail, the wargame made by D&D's designers before they published the original D&D set, as a way to classify which "side" a given type of unit would be on.

In short, these "defunct" game elements are just one of many factors contributing to the bloat in the modern D&D rules, especially the 5.x editions. And this is just one of many reasons why I will always recommend one of the older editions of D&D, particularly BECMI, or another third-party game with much more focused and streamlined design (see Shadowdark, Into the Odd, and Dungeon Crawl Classics, to name just three) over fifth edition.

[zigmenthotep]

After exhaustive research, I have determined that there are exactly 12 female-presenting nipples in the original Dungeons & Dragons books.

Edit: There is also the cover of Eldritch Wizardry, but the actual nipples are very indistinct.

[redlilyadventuringcompany]

The Northern Treks - Part I: Starting the Open Table

Throughout this series of posts, I hope to chronicle my experiences running an Open Table Campaign using the Original 1974 version of Dungeons & Dragons with Supplement I: Greyhawk, Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry, as well as the rules for the Ranger class from the Summer 1975 Issue of The Strategic Review. I will be writing about both my successes and my failures, as well as the problems I wind up facing and my solutions to them. Hopefully this series will encourage more people to try both OD&D and the Open Table style of play.

What is an Open Table? Why run one?

Put plainly an Open Table is a style of running D&D especially but tabletop roleplaying games more generally that is flexible and playercentric. Players schedule their own sessions with the referee and are responsible for wrangling other players from the playgroup to make a party for that session, as well as determining their goals. The only job of the referee is to have the dungeon levels or hexcrawl already made and then adjudicate the world. The two best resources on this sort of play are Justin Alexander’s Open Table Manifesto and Ben Robbins’ article on The West Marches. (These creators are brilliant, go read their stuff and support them if you can, we need more people like them in the rpg space).

“But why would you do this?”, you might ask. Well I have a problem, one which I’m sure is becoming increasingly common. I love running ttrpgs and I have a lot of friends who love playing them, but we’re all adults now so scheduling is a nightmare. Even when we can find a night that everyone is available, we usually wind up cancelling half of our sessions. People are busy, emergencies happen, someone’s kid gets sick, someone’s dog injures itself, life happens.

Additionally, I know a lot of people who enjoy tabletop games or want to try them but just do not have the time or desire to join a multi-year campaign that meets for 5 hours 4-5 times a month. The Open Table allows these people to come around every once in a while when they have the time and desire to play and then leave for as long as they want without missing anything important while at the same time being rewarding for those players who want to play multiple times a week.

This sort of play also allows you to play with so many more people and in so many more combinations. Beyond the benefits of letting more casual players have a space to enjoy the game on their terms, the Open Table allows for, nay requires, that expansive 5-50 player playgroup that Gygax and Arneson describe in the opening of Men & Magic. (Yes that’s a later part of this post, but seriously pick up 1974 D&D, it’s 10 bucks on Drivethrurpg.)

Okay, so why OD&D?

The short answer is that it is, in my opinion, easily the best and most purely good version of Dungeon & Dragons. The long answer is a lot more complex. This decision is in part because the Open Table requires by its very nature a very fast and simple character creation method and OD&D has what is probably the fastest and simplest character creation method ever devised. There are other fantasy ttrpgs that do this very well too, such as: Old School Essentials by Necrotic Gnome, Labyrinth Lord from Goblinoid Games, and World Without Number from Sine Nomine Publishing, just to name a few. These are awesome games in their own right which I would highly recommend. 

It is as well a bit of an archeological project, I am very interested in those early years of the hobby and how things were played back then. I want to reconstruct that and tweak it as needed to make it work well in the modern day. A sort of challenge to myself as a gamemaster. It has been a blast already just in the construction of the Player’s Guide to sift through and make sense of these rules.

Finally, it just does what I want out of an rpg for this sort of play. Quick and pulpy swords & sorcery. Plenty of solid domain and stronghold building rules and hirelings/retainers baked into the rules from the start and up in the player’s faces. I’m a bit burnt out on contemporary popular styles of play, i.e. super narrative games and Big Damn Quest games. I want to dive head first into the ocean of the OSR without a lifevest or oxygen supply.  

Finally My Goals and The Northern Treks Player’s Guide

My goals with this campaign is to create an exciting sandbox that combines old school megadungeoncrawling, with wilderness survival and exploration focused hexcrawling, and explores the idea of urbancrawling as an exploratory system (seriously read and support The Alexandrian). Therefore the Northern Treks must be a fantastical place, avoiding the pitfall of having mundane and ordinary environments. Once it is complete, this region will consist of a small city on the frontier that the PCs are based out of, the megadungeon that is nearby it, and the wilderness hexmap plus PC treasure map.

The Player’s Guide mostly consists of rules clarifications for OD&D as well as short primer on house rules and the such. Anyone who is interested can see what I did with this here.

I am very excited to be going on this journey and I hope it helps at least one person with coming into this style of interacting with tabletop gaming.

[adventuresandshopping]

Chainmail: Rules for Medieval Miniatures (WotC / TSR) DriveThruRPG $4.99  44-page PDF download

http://bit.ly/TSRchainmail

As referred to in the Original Dungeons & Dragons rules, Chainmail includes the original rules for one-to-one melee using six sided dice.  Many players adopted the “alternative” d20 rules included in the first D&D pamphlets, especially in the absence of these specialist rules for miniature warfare.  The Chainmail rules are an essential reference for hobbyists who like to explore the heritage of rules in D&D. 

[bonkposting]

i’m running an old-school dungeon crawler! finally!!

i’ll be using a big mash-up of Delving Deeper + a Luke Gearing’s Wolves Upon the Coast and Snackrifice rules. sounds like a lot, but it’s mostly:

the six trad stats w/ three saves (Dodging, Physique, Warding)

simplified attack bonus tables

simplified weapon damage (d6 for everything; light weaponry rolls 2d6kL, heavy weaponry rolls 2d6kH) and weapon qualities

simplified attack rolls (d20 + modifiers + target AC > 20)

simplified encumbrance (AC + 5 slots)

it’s going to be so fun!