Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Dice, paper, pencil, a couple people and the rulebooks that say AD&D on 'em.

- Wheggi

These are what I identify as being core to the 1e AD&D rules, and differentiating the game from OD&D and B/X, etc.. In addition, these things define the AD&D experience to me:
1) Definite separation of race and class.
2) Multiclassing with even division of XP, not "Magic-User one day, Fighter the next"
3) Leather = AC 8
4) Attribute bonus/penalty tables
5) Magic Resistance for tough monsters
6) Big hit dice (d10 for fighter, etc...)
7) Turning, Attack, and Save tables from DMG, or equivalent (Lakofka's more granular tables for The Dragon, for example)
Weapon damage separated into S/M and L categories.
9) Spell descriptions in the PHB (Magic Missile is different, etc...)
10) Treasure tables in the MM
11) Descriptions of particular magic items in the DMG. For example, the differentiation between the Girdles of Giant Strength
12) Clerics get a spell at 1st level

Smaller issues that aren't "deal breakers" to me, meaning I can take or leave:
1) Subclasses
2) Spellcasting times and the segment based timing system

I went through a process last where I sought to create a version of D&D circa 1977, after the MM was released, but before the AD&D PHB. I started with the 3 little booklets, combed through the supplements and Strategic Review, and ended up with what amounted to be AD&D without spell casting times and d8 hit die for fighters, etc...

At that point, I just decided to use a stripped down version of AD&D 1e, with a simplified set of spell casting times, and call it done. The exercise definitely showed me what I consider to be francisca's idea of what (A)D&D is and should be, at least as far as these "values" hold for me.

Stuff that is definitely tossed out and not considered to be important at all to the AD&D experience, IMO:
1) Weapon vs. Armor, Weapon Speeds (though I'd use them for a tie breaker)
2) Psionics
3) Monk and Bard classes

Again, this is all my opinion, your mileage may vary, offer void in internet social circles where orthodoxy is required.

Nice list Francisca.

I'd say you don't have to have the actual books with you (while travelling I've played 1E without the books, using copies of the tables or my screen and we remembered pretty much everything we needed to know for low level PCs). You have to use the characters and what defines them (the ranger has such and such powers and requires x attributes), and you eventually have to include the monsters (at least the common ones). And yeah, you have to have dice, paper and pencils/pens and players.

So: 1. Tables (to hit and saves), 2. Classes, 3. Monsters, 4. Initiative (d6 high role goes first side A vs. side B), 5. Spells (including range, duration, area of effect), 6. Weapons damage.

geneweigel wrote:

thedungeondelver wrote:well, on discussion with Gary, anything from the UA backwards are the AD&D rules. He's stated (to me) that OA, MotP, WSG and DSG are all 2e-books-in-sheep's-clothing and that's all the authority on the matter I need.

I wish I had a conversation about OA with Gary Gygax when OA came out! I just remember the grief on trying to figure what to with it. I had everything for Kara-Tur and it just didn't say squat to me. And I'm a major fan of samurai and Asian concepts. (I just hate anime with a passion.) What they did to the Orient was turn it into National Geographic and "authentic" where as the Occident... (to say it like George Carlin)...WAS NOT!

Remember, though: neither Gary nor Francois Froideval wrote OA.

thedungeondelver wrote:Remember, though: neither Gary nor Francois Froideval wrote OA.

Yup. It's Zeb Cook's baby.

geneweigel wrote:I'm a major fan of samurai and Asian concepts. (I just hate anime with a passion.)

This mirrors my own tastes, by the way. I love feodal Japan, and some major aspects of Japan's culture. I can't stand kawaii (cult of the cute) and everything that surrounds it, which includes most anime/manga, hello kitty and all that bull.

Odhanan wrote:

thedungeondelver wrote:Remember, though: neither Gary nor Francois Froideval wrote OA.

Yup. It's Zeb Cook's baby.

I am not Zeb's biggest fan, but I always thought Oriental Adventures was the right kind of crazy.

The only problem with OA is that it is not balanced with the AD&D PHB classes imo.

Also, the martial arts rules should have been integrated into the monk and less, you know, crazy and broken in that special Field Plate kind of way.

AxeMental wrote:4. Initiative (d6 high role goes first side A vs. side B)

It's kind of funny to see this on your list when no one else has mentioned it and it is in fact one of the most commonly-changed rules in games that still consider themselves "AD&D."

T. Foster wrote:

AxeMental wrote:4. Initiative (d6 high role goes first side A vs. side B)

It's kind of funny to see this on your list when no one else has mentioned it and it is in fact one of the most commonly-changed rules in games that still consider themselves "AD&D."

Well, I suppose you could do a low role goes first method (like Gary's d10), but I still think you need a role side A vs side B (vs. say 3Es system) and can't leave this up to some other method like a DMs call. PBiddy once mentioned the Trolls played 1E "back in the day" without dice. How? Thats not 1E.


Also to clearify, the PH and DMG must be used (the MM list is in the DMG afterall) I was only talking about travel situations. In those cases its assumed the DM knows his stuff pat already.

AxeMental wrote:

T. Foster wrote:

AxeMental wrote:4. Initiative (d6 high role goes first side A vs. side B)

It's kind of funny to see this on your list when no one else has mentioned it and it is in fact one of the most commonly-changed rules in games that still consider themselves "AD&D."

Well, I suppose you could do a low role goes first method (like Gary's d10), but I still think you need a role side A vs side B (vs. say 3Es system) and can't leave this up to some other method like a DMs call. PBiddy once mentioned the Trolls played 1E "back in the day" without dice. How? Thats not 1E.

Maybe using the JE Holmes' edit of BD&D method - assign a Dex score to monsters (or use what's printed) and compare to characters, high side goes first, d6 resolves ties.

AxeMental wrote: Well, I suppose you could do a low role goes first method (like Gary's d10), but I still think you need a role side A vs side B (vs. say 3Es system) and can't leave this up to some other method like a DMs call. PBiddy once mentioned the Trolls played 1E "back in the day" without dice. How? That's not 1E.

We used to lose our dice a lot at school, and resorted to coin tosses and spinners and the like during lunch breaks; could have been something like that. As to the general initiative question, I think it does not matter too much as long as the general principles are in place (random die roll indicates order of action, modified by duration of actions undertaken at the game master's discretion), but to be properly playing first edition AD&D it ought to involve a 1d6, spell casting times, and a segmented round for movement.

Matthew wrote: We used to lose our dice a lot at school, and resorted to coin tosses and spinners and the like during lunch breaks; could have been something like that.

I remember using number two pencils with 1 thru 6 notches in them.
We weren't allowed to have dice at school, it was "gambling".

Vigilance wrote:

Odhanan wrote:

thedungeondelver wrote:Remember, though: neither Gary nor Francois Froideval wrote OA.

Yup. It's Zeb Cook's baby.

I am not Zeb's biggest fan, but I always thought Oriental Adventures was the right kind of crazy.

What's really interesting is, that, if Gary didn't have his falling out with TSR around the same time, I suspect the aborted AD&D expansion would still have had a lot of Zeb Cook's input. Based on UA and the last issues of Gary's column, I think he and Jeff Grubb along with Frank Mentzer would have been the chief co-writers of that expansion. (I suspect Gary would not have undertaken it all himself because of his Hollywood and other commitments, although I suspect whatever resulted would have had a strong editing like I've seen on most of EGG's projects. I also think Francois might have also been involved--although based on comments said elsewhere I suspect language translation was a big problem involving the original manuscript).

Cook had good ideas--I just didn't like his execution of 2nd edition or his Planescape background, but I loved his Expert Set contributions and OA is kind of fun.

Matthew: "but to be properly playing first edition AD&D it ought to involve a 1d6, spell casting times, and a segmented round for movement."

See, I agree with this really. To get the "feel" of what the game is all about, you really need to experience the d6 high role first, the idea that some spells are going to go off faster then others (usually the weaker ones are faster).
These particulars are espl. important if you want to differentiate 1E from 0E and 2E.

As for other ways of determining initiative (throwing pencils for instance or flipping coins) thats fine, as long as you know what your missing. The d10 method described by Gygax at his house games never appealed to me and seemed to cut against the 1E experience (we actually did try it briefly).

Matthew wrote:but to be properly playing first edition AD&D it ought to involve a 1d6, spell casting times, and a segmented round for movement.

I strongly disagree. I'd guess 95+% of AD&D games I've played in over the years (including those GM'd by the likes of Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz) did not handle initiative that way, so any definition that would exclude those games is of no use or value to me (or, I suspect, much of anyone else, except the haters who like to "prove" that no one ever really" played AD&D because it's a terrible game so we should all now play C&C/LL/S&W/Hackmaster/4E/Pathfinder/T&T/Savage Worlds/GURPS/whatever instead because it's so objectively better). Initiative is, along with perhaps unarmed combat, probably THE most widely house-ruled aspect of the game -- I don't think I've ever played under 2 different GMs who handled it exactly the same way, even those who claimed to be following the rules in the book exactly.