I started playing D&D around 1980. At that time and all through the 80's and 90's, the original box set was only occasionally mentioned and never played. It was like the magna charta of gaming, a historical document of value but not something actively used.
 
I've read pdfs of OD&D. It's largely a jumbled mess. I'm not sure if my 12 year old self would have been hooked if I had to read white box instead of the clean power of Moldvay.
 
I'm not against old school play. Today, with retro clones and neo-old school games, there are more options than ever. So why the renaissance for OD&D? To me, it looks like pretentious adolation of an antique brand name. Is there something I'm missing?
 
I've played RC, Moldvay, AD&D, and several non-D&D old school games.  Don't try to sell me on old school, show me what OD&D has that the others don't.

Quote from: Nicephorus;247924I've played RC, Moldvay, AD&D, and several non-D&D old school games.  Don't try to sell me on old school, show me what OD&D has that the others don't.

OD&D 74, Holmes, BECMI, AD&D 1st are all variations of the same rule system yet have different feel and features.

OD&D 74 as the progenitor of the subsequent editions has two unique things that makes it stand out from its successors.

1) It use of the D6 for combat damage makes running encounters a lot simplifier. You need to record very little to run most monsters.  Subsequent editions add to the monster's abilities making running them more complex.

2) The utter lack of a skill system even a thief class make challenging the player not the character the default mode of play.

3) Most of the rules are written with a wide latitude for referee's interpretation. BECMI still has this to some degree but it also been cleaned up and clarified to a degree as well.


Everything else is because of the feel of how the classes, items, monster and spell combine. Either you like it, don't care, or dislike it.

The addition of the Greyhawk supplement will change OD&D into a proto AD&D and remove both points 1 and 2. It becomes mostly just a feel of the game issue.

The Renaissance isn't all about slavish worship of the old. A couple of good essays on old school gaming have made new fans. In addition some of us are trying to advance from the old school foundation into different directions from the current market. For example my own Points of Light.

As Estar says, OD&D, BX, BECMI, etc. are all pretty much the same game (though each has its own peculiarities).  Moldvay D&D is pretty much the OD&D box with a few key differences (e.g. no bizarre "Elf is either a Figher or M-U for this adventure," ability bonuses).

As the years go by, I've come to realize that I don't necessarily need big lists of skills, special case rules, character advantages and disadvantages, etc. for the games I run.  I've had just as much, if not more, fun role-playing personalities rather than making trait rolls, making rulings off the cuff rather than looking up rules in the book, etc.  And my players almost always have, too.

So with OD&D, you've got a ruleset that's about as bare-bones as possible.  You have rules for making your characters, rules for moving around, rules for what happens when a fight breaks out, and a list of baddies for the PCs to encounter.  Really, do you need any more than that from a rulebook?

Add to that the fact that, because OD&D is so minimalist, it's wide open for customizing, as well.

That said, my favorite D&D is Moldvay, but I can completely understand those who return to the white/woodgrain box well.

Quote from: estar;2479441) It use of the D6 for combat damage makes running encounters a lot simplifier. You need to record very little to run most monsters. Subsequent editions add to the monster's abilities making running them more complex.
 
2) The utter lack of a skill system even a thief class make challenging the player not the character the default mode of play.
 
3) Most of the rules are written with a wide latitude for referee's interpretation. BECMI still has this to some degree but it also been cleaned up and clarified to a degree as well.
 

For me 1) just feels too vanilla and 2) and 3) are present enough for in Moldvay Basic. RC is alright but it adds lots of special rules for skills, weapon specialization and other things.
 
I know there are clones of Basic and AD&D.  Is there one of OD&D that cleans up the writing?

QuoteI know there are clones of Basic and AD&D. Is there one of OD&D that cleans up the writing?

http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/

Quote from: Nicephorus;2479591) just feels too vanilla

Hence the reason why we have RPGs of every type of complexity and genre.

Quote from: Nicephorus;247924I started playing D&D around 1980. At that time and all through the 80's and 90's, the original box set was only occasionally mentioned and never played. It was like the magna charta of gaming, a historical document of value but not something actively used.
 
I've read pdfs of OD&D. It's largely a jumbled mess. I'm not sure if my 12 year old self would have been hooked if I had to read white box instead of the clean power of Moldvay.

I'm of the same feeling.  OD&D seems a lot more popular today than it was five years ago, let alone 20 years ago (when 2E was coming out).  When 2E was coming out, the vast majority of D&D players I knew were familiar with 1E and Basic, but there were no copies of OD&D floating about, no one playing the game, etc.

Then again, we're a long way from Michigan out here in Seattle, and given the limited runs of OD&D -- less than 100,000 copies were printed, and I'm being generous -- it may not have spread evenly.  It's hard to say.

I've since gotten a hold of the OD&D books (and then lost them again when my mom gave ALL of my gaming collection to Goodwill on accident in 1997) and I know that I wouldn't have understood the game at 10 the way I was able to understand the Moldvay Red Box (seriously, that book is the single best introduction to RPGs ever).  I definitely don't think it's superior in any sense, except perhaps in the sense that -- like RIFTS -- the rules are impenetrable and so vague as to give the game master incredible freedom to engage in illusionism (and that is not a dis on illusionism, of which I am a firm proponent).

I wonder if there is some desire to be more old school than old school behind the growth of interest in OD&D.  Here's my theory:

By 1997 Dungeons & Dragons was defined by the Second Edition of the game, with no support for other systems and little in the way of a meaningful back market.  D&D was in general decline due to competition from White Wolf and poor management by TSR. After the release of the Player's Options book, Second Edition is seen by most gamers as being completely broken (I disagree, but that's neither here nor there). Wizards buys the company.

In 2000, Wizards releases Third Edition to widespread popular acclaim.  WOTC is seen as having "saved" Dungeons & Dragons from the "ruin" that was 2E.  The OGL creates new possibilities for developers.

As WOTC milks the gaming market with revisions and splatbooks, the credibility the company gained with 3E's release begins to sour, much like George Bush squandered international goodwill after Spet. 11th.  Except a lot more trivial.

A group of developers -- Clark Peterson, Joseph Goodman, etc. -- begins cultivating a market of gamers who are increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of WOTC and nostalgic for the vision of D&D most of them were first exposed to, a vision of D&D informed by classic modules like Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors, and Against the Giants.  The Old School movement begins in earnest.

Seeing the breaking of the market into WOTC devotees and Old School devotees, new developers seek to further capitalize on market break-ups and split off new theoretical markets of Older Than Old School players with the release of games like Castles & Crusades and OSRIC.

Thus I think the "resurgence" of OD&D is mostly manufactured, driven by designers who want to create new markets, and gamers who confuse being Old School with being Original Gangster want to distinguish themselves by being Older than Old School.  Thus, rather than holding up AD&D and Basic as the pinnacle of the game, they insist OD&D was the pinnacle of the game.

Good analysis, except that discounts the existence of things like Dragonsfoot (established 2002 I believe) and the fact that there are people who never stopped playing 1E, or 2E, (or OD&D for that matter) that never jumped aboard 3rd edition.

I climbed back aboard in 2003 when I discovered Dragonsfoot... for some reason, it never occurred to me to play old editions... I just gave up on D&D in 1994 or 1995 when the 2nd edition BS got too much...

Quote from: Nicephorus;247959For me 1) just feels too vanilla and 2) and 3) are present enough for in Moldvay Basic. RC is alright but it adds lots of special rules for skills, weapon specialization and other things.

Which is what it all comes down to in the end. A mater of taste. You don't understand the adulation OD&D is getting because it doesn't match your tastes. It does, however, appear to match the tastes of others. That's the explanation, right there.

BTW, I'm not saying it matches my tastes either.

-clash

Quote from: estar;247964Hence the reason why we have RPGs of every type of complexity and genre.

Bingo!

-clash

Actually, another good reason for OD&D... because it's the barest-bones of the D&D versions, if you're wanting to make changes to the system it's the easiest to use as a base, and you can still add whatever you might want from most of the other editions and it'll still work.

Quote from: Jackalope;248097Thus I think the "resurgence" of OD&D is mostly manufactured, driven by designers who want to create new markets, and gamers who confuse being Old School with being Original Gangster want to distinguish themselves by being Older than Old School.  Thus, rather than holding up AD&D and Basic as the pinnacle of the game, they insist OD&D was the pinnacle of the game.

I never stopped playing 2e and BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia games. I didn't even know 3e existed until about 2004. The retro-clones seem like a great way to keep up the support of the editions I never gave up on, and I'm sure there were people playing OD&D right the way through from 1974 to now.

A second point: what's wrong with discovering something old but good? I love 70s music. The production values, themes and songwriting seem way superior to those around these days. A personal subjective opinion, but not one that I hold just to be Original Gangster. You don't think it's possible to discover OD&D in 2008 the same way you can discover 10cc in 2008?

All I know is, everyone in my apartment complex is my bitch now that I'm Old School, yo.

Quote from: KenHR;248262All I know is, everyone in my apartment complex is my bitch now that I'm Old School, yo.

d two ohs before hos, muthafukka.

EDIT:  Yeah, boyyyyy, lookit mah sig.  Olde School, bitches.

I'm always down to represent for the O.G., but I have to prepare my next class. I'll try to come back later.

OD&D consisted not just in rules but in a set of play-practices which could be easily duplicated if desired in AD&D 1 and 2, Moldvay, Mentzer, and Holmes. While those games were in print OD&D players had no reason not to pick and choose the features of those games they liked, since those games were all, in a certain sense anyway, customizations of OD&D.

3rd and 4th edition D&D have in various ways - and this is not to knock them as games - jeapordized some of those play-practices. Both rules and play-text militate against them in some ways. I know that you can play a game very similar to the older versions of D&D in 3e, especially at lower levels, and for all I know you can get at least partway there in 4e, but there's a lot that's different too.

Among other things, the return to OD&D now is the return to a neutral framework within which many of the other pre-2000 approaches to D&D can be fit, unprejudicially. That framework didn't need to be explicitly endorsed, defended, and developed until it was driven underground in the context that has developed since the D&D brand moved to Seattle.

I'm happy to see lots of different games and let a thousand flowers blossom, but many old approaches have been left aside by the current big games. Hence the return. There are some important things that some people will want a reminder of.

What these are in detail is the longer post I don't have time for now. I'll try to come back and say more...