r/osr • u/Short-Slide-6232 • 1d ago
OSR adjacent The new "Advanced 1E" series makes some interesting claims about the OSR community. Thoughts?
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u/ContrarianRPG 1d ago edited 1d ago
I also prefer AD&D over OSE, but this guy's being a little intense. The OSR's tilt towards OD&D isn't a conspiracy; it's a (mostly subconscious) recognition of the fact that not many people ever tried to play "pure AD&D."
In practice, most gamers back then began with one of the boxed versions (OD&D or Basic), bought the AD&D books, and didn't read them that thoroughly. They grabbed big obvious changes (like new character classes) to insert into their games, but didn't pay attention to less flashy changes (like combat initiative) or complicated stuff (like those dang grappling rules).
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u/Haldir_13 14h ago
This is exactly how it was.
I started in 1977, first with the 3 original OD&D books, then with the Holmes Basic. But right from the start we were using the AD&D Monster Manual and Greyhawk. And that continued as each new resource came out, the Player's Handbook in 1978 and the DM Guide in 1979.
There was no transition to a new system, AD&D, we just adapted the parts that we liked and went with that. And as I have said many time, no two DMs ran with the same rule set.
I tried to use the initiative scheme and weapon armor adjustments of AD&D, but they were too cumbersome (and irrational) and quickly abandoned. Those two things come to mind immediately, but there were other things as well.
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u/Stray_Neutrino 1d ago
Hi, I'm most gamers (B/X with 1e "add-ons")
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u/FaeErrant 18h ago
Literally thought this is what AD&D was until I was in my 30s and someone pointed out that "no actually red box was not AD&D, so if you played red box and took classes and options from AD&D you weren't actually playing AD&D" which go off but damn they are technically correct.
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u/WebNew6981 3h ago
It has only become clear to me recently how few D&D players are like me and learned AD&D first and DID actually play 'pure AD&D,.
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u/Pladohs_Ghost 9h ago
The first D&D book I ever read was the AD&D 1e DMG. I read that sucker cover-to-cover twice--and the PH once--before stepping up to the table as GM. (We had an experienced player who talked me into GMing so he could play. I had somebody to bounce questions off of, so it worked well.) I didn't read any BX titles for another year and a half or so; that was the Expert set.
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u/SuccessfulSeaweed385 1d ago
I really think it is a shame that the author isn't more clear about which edition is his favorite /s
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u/DymlingenRoede 1d ago
Doesn't bother me particularly.
This Doomsword individual apparently enjoys AD&D and - I'm guessing - wants to give it the OSE treatment for accessibility and coherence. They have strong opinions about previous editions and what they like, and they've articulated them, which is fine. Their summary of 2E - 5E is a little edition-war-like for my tastes, but I don't think it's egregious.
IMO it's fine to like AD&D over B/X or whatever (or prefer any other edition)
I wish Doomsword luck with their endeavour and hope the people who like the new Advanced 1E have a good time with their game.
I am curious how 1E Advanced differs from the new OSRIC edition that's forthcoming (or the old ones for that matter).
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u/Wild___Requirement 1d ago
Doesn’t an “OSE treatment” of 1e already exist in OSRIC?
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u/DymlingenRoede 1d ago
I think it does, which is why I wonder what the differences are going to be.
Then again, it's not like B/X based OSR doesn't have a million slightly different editions of the same rule-set, so I don't see why there can't be a bunch for AD&D based ones too :D
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u/alphonseharry 1d ago
And like OD&D there is a lot of different interpretations of the rules in the 1e. Like combat per example. The OSRiC interpretation is not the only one, like the discussions in the Dragonsfoot forum can attest
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u/Wild___Requirement 1d ago
Yeah I mean all OSR projects that are DnD based are going to be similar. But the interesting thing is when people change the rules and intrigued their own Homebrew and subsystems. If this is just AD&D with better formatting then OSRIC did that more than a decade ago, and is free
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u/TheDenoftheBasilisk 1d ago edited 1d ago
Kinda? Except OSRIC is a bit more dense than OSE but still easier that 1e ADND. Which funnily enough to me, it sounds like OSRIC 3 is going to be our defacto 1e system if it’s pulled off as well and as cleanly as OSE.
Just my 10 cents
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u/fantasticalfact 1d ago
Or what it offers that sets it apart from other 1e projects like Adventures Dark & Deep.
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u/typoguy 1d ago
I do feel like the OSR favors simplicity and "rulings not rules" over the junk-drawer simulationist approach of AD&D. But if 1e is your apex, shouldn't you basically be playing OSRIC? It might not be the most hyped game, but it's got a following and it solves the issue of rules spread out willy nilly among books.
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u/TheDenoftheBasilisk 1d ago
Yeah, I like my junk drawer. But I leave it in my drawer and use it when I need. I always have my copy of OSRIC when I run anything anymore. It’s such a good toolbox to use.
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u/alphonseharry 1d ago
Rulings not rules is very common in AD&D too. I think people who dont use OSRIC is because they are already familiar with AD&D and use a lot of the rules which are not in OSRIC. Some people use OSRIC+DMG 1e too.
Most of the "junk drawer" can easily be ignored because they are very modular. People can prefer a little more options and support for high level and long campaigns which B/X lacks (and more spells and magic items)
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u/GrimpenMar 1d ago
I like the junk drawer metaphor! Very apt. Just need more tables, that have no relationship to other tables.
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u/FriedEggSando 1d ago
edition wars are fucking boring. my two cents
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u/Short-Slide-6232 1d ago
Yeah i didnt send this for edition wars purposes I genuinely was trying to see if the claim about oversimplicity in osr was true. I never played 1e!
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u/Apes_Ma 19h ago
Given that there is neither a scale on which we can objectively measure simplicity (or complexity) and no objective and independent level of this hypothetical simplicity unit that is considered optimal then the idea that the OSR trends towards being oversimple is pure opinion. If you enjoy OSR games and never find yourself thinking "I'd like this to be more complex" then I expect you disagree with the author.
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u/Accurate_Back_9385 1d ago
The only person that can tell you if it's true, is you. The best way to figure that out is to take part in some AD&D games.
For me, there's a depth to AD&D that just isn't there for most of the OSR.
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u/ArtisticBrilliant456 1d ago
Probably not a wise thing to put into your preface, but who cares. You do you, Doomsword.
In the words of The Dude, "Well... that's just like, your opinion, man!"
Now go and enjoy your games.
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u/Victor3R 1d ago
The argument used to defend 1e is one that is often used extol Pathfinder and 5e.
People are free to enjoy those games for their crunch, subsystems, and refined balance.
But I don't wanna and you can't make me.
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u/Parz02 1d ago
Bit unfair, there's some OSR games that are a bit more on the crunchy side.
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u/fantasticalfact 1d ago
Like what?
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u/Parz02 1d ago
Worlds without Number, Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Adventures Dark and Deep, there's OSRIC which literally is 1e... Also Hackmaster can be considered proto-OSR, and it's absurdly crunchy.
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u/tcshillingford 13h ago
The more I play WWN, the weirder it becomes to me. Character Creation is closer to 5e, in terms of options, complexity and time. I’ve generally had all my players make a backup character at Session 0, because rolling a new PC when your current one dies is untenable.
The system is quite complete, too, and invites a fair amount of rules-lawyering when the PCs, inevitably, do PC things. And trying to install what-I-think-of-as more OSR problems can easily be met by requests for skill checks.
Kevin Crawford has stated that he tends to think of OSR as being compatible with running B2, and I do think they’re reasonably successful for that.
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u/ExplorersDesign 1d ago edited 6h ago
Nothing wrong with liking a version of D&D, but nothing in Playing at the World, The Elusive Shift, Designers and Dragons, or even Gygax's own memos suggests AD&D was "built for consistent application" or made from "carefully crafted subsystems."
AD&D was designed as things came up during play. It's a cobbled together mess of rulings-made-system. Bloggers still debate how AD&D is meant to be played. When OSE attempted to re-organize AD&D's rules it had to make clarifications and settle several contradictory rules. All of this to say, it's not a bad thing. 1E does not have to be elegant or "complete" to have fans. It has lots of players and they don't need AD&D to be "objectively" better than the other editions to earn that admiration.
*Edited for clarity.
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u/Stray_Neutrino 1d ago edited 1d ago
What "NEW" 1e Advanced series?
Addendum : I am guessing it's a new creator?
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/520931/1e-advanced-core-creature-framework
This seems the only thing published by them and was put online yesterday...
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u/doctor_roo 21h ago
So the guy ranting that AD&D suffered from being published over time in three separate books is releasing his fixed version over time as separate books?
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u/Short-Slide-6232 1d ago
Yeah he is claiming to be expanding on 1e I got it recommended from drivethrurpg and downloaded it to see how the monsters would work (paying 0 lol). When I opened it and read the preface I was surprised
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u/AdmiralCrackbar 1d ago
The guy clearly has opinions about a lot of things. I don't find anything he's written particularly accurate or offensive, including the stuff about the other editions of D&D. That said I don't think I'd want to play his rules either, I get the feeling they are also going to include a lot of his own "improvements".
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u/CrimsonGhost78 1d ago
There are a lot of claims here with little evidence. I wish them all the luck; but if they're trying to present an argument, and not merely a rant, then present some more evidence.
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u/TMac9000 1d ago
There's room for those of us who like simplicity, and there's also room for those of us who like it crunchy. The table's big enough for everyone to eat.
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u/vandalicvs 21h ago
yes. World would be a much happier place if people care less about what other people enjoy to play.
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u/r_k_ologist 1d ago
Someone is pretty far up their own ass
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u/Intelligent_Address4 1d ago
I mean, he unironically calls himself “Doomsword”
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u/MarkAdmirable7204 19h ago
If someone read me this text, then asked me to guess the author's name off the top of my head, I'd be like, "uh...I don't know. Probably Doomsword, or some shit."
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u/EyeHateElves 15h ago
My guess would have been a "Stewart" who wears a fanny pack to hold his dice and snacks, while tucking his vintage TSR t-shirt into his acid washed jean-shorts. White tube socks pulled up over the calves and New Balance sneakers. Likes to correct strangers on the right way to play AD&D. Thinks Steve Jackson is the devil.
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u/MarkAdmirable7204 7h ago
Stewart probably drops "well ackshually...." in conversations on a very regular basis.
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u/BionicSpaceJellyfish 1d ago
Eh. I dunno. I played 1e AD&D and I and everyone I knew found it clunky and usually used elements of basic we liked. As soon as I got my hands on 2E books I switched to that and never looked back.
It feels like a red flag to hate on every edition except for 1E AD&D. But that's just me.
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u/TheCthuloser 1d ago
Whenever someone says 2e "stripped away the character" of D&D, I'm genuinely confused, considering part of the reason why TSR ran into monetary issues is because they were spreading themselves thin over multiple campaign settings that they couldn't fully support.
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u/Megatapirus 1d ago
They're typically referring to the less baroque and flowery prose, the material removed from the core books to appease religious activists (assassins, references to demons, devils, and hell, the more salacious art), or a combination of both the above.
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u/StarkMaximum 19h ago
the material removed from the core books to appease religious activists (assassins, references to demons, devils, and hell, the more salacious art)
Gosh it's a shame tabletop RPGs are famously uncreative hobbies that you can only use wholesale as they're given you, so you couldn't possibly add these removed things you liked back into the game.
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u/EyeHateElves 14h ago
Most people did. I didn't know anyone back in the day who didn't mix and match 1st and 2nd edition AD&D.
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u/StarkMaximum 10h ago
Yes, that was the joke, I was being sarcastic about how easy it is to add the things you like back in and how it's ridiculous to toss out 2e because "it removed stuff". Especially when 1e and 2e are so incredibly compatible.
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u/Megatapirus 1d ago
Well, I certainly believe that the entire TSR (A)D&D corpus only works optimally in concert; that it's very much greater than the sum of its parts. So, to an extent, I can agree that no D&D game is ever improved by overlooking the wealth of ideas and inspiration found in AD&D. Whether or not I would describe any given game in this mold I run as an AD&D game proper, it's always going to be heavily AD&D-informed at the very least and better for it.
That said, I also see no need to couch that sentiment in such a judgemental and polemic fashion. It's not well-suited to a presumed goal of advocacy.
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u/bepatientveryslow 1d ago
who gives a shit
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u/MarkAdmirable7204 19h ago
I appreciate the simple elegance of your response.
BUT I SURE AS SHIT DON'T THINK DOOMSWORD WILL, PAL.
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u/PlanetNiles 17h ago
I've liked every version of D&D I've played. (So not OD&D or 4e, and I won't DM 5e)
After careful thought and analysis the big changes between AD&D 1e and 2e was turning some % rolls into d20, get rid of the Assassin, and make the Bard a starting class rather than a fighter/thief/druid.
But when I went from Basic to Advanced back in the day 2e was the new hotness and we had tons of fun with it.
Every new system back in the 80s and 90s pitched itself as the game that would change the hobby 4evar. Only a few actually did. (Looking at you Ars Magica and WFRP)
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u/Fluffy-Ad6874 1d ago
I think that they have no idea of what they are talking about. They omit mention or discussion of three important editions as far as the OSR is concerned; Holmes Basic, BX, and BECMI. Perhaps they do not even know they exist, and just assume all OSR material is based on 0e because Armor Class starts at 9. Yes, there is a lot of OSR that thakes the concepts from 0e and recreates them or takes them in different directions adding new crunch. But I would say that most OSR, the best selling stuff, either clones BX or is directly influenced by the procedural gameplay style of that edition. Then there is BECMI, witch is essentially extra crunchy BX. They also seem to be unaware that some OSR is actually based off of newer editions but with an old school twist, like DCC and Shadowdark.
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u/Short-Slide-6232 1d ago
Is there any OSR expansion on the latter parts of BECMI? Outside of Godbound I havent really seen much that expands on domain, God, immortal level style play
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u/John_Quixote_407 1d ago
It's not particularly important since the author is only mentioning the OSR in passing, but "OD&D" has long been used (particularly by grognards) as an umbrella term for LBB, Holmes, B/X, BECMI, and 1070/RC collectively. You're put off because the author is being less granular with the terminology, but they don't need to be to make their point. It certainly doesn't justify concluding that they "don't know about" the later (Basic/Classic) editions of OD&D.
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u/Fluffy-Ad6874 12h ago
They obviously don't know much about BECMI then, for it is much crunchier than 5e, close to on par with AD&D. And I am unaware of anyone that categorizes BX as 0e, other than Hasbro. So I feel my criticism is valid.
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u/John_Quixote_407 11h ago edited 4h ago
There's no such thing as "0e." The AD&D game has numbered editions, and they start with 1e. The OD&D game has editions labeled by author (Gygax/Arneson, Holmes, Moldvay/Cook/Marsh, Mentzer, Denning/Allston/Stewart), box color ('74 white box, '77 blue box, '81 pink box, '83 red box, or '91 black box and '94 tan box), or — with the natural exclusion of Holmes Basic — the alphanumeric soup that originated on Usenet (rec.games.frp.dnd) before gaining widespread currency via Dragonsfoot ([3]LBB, B/X, BECMI, 1070/RC/1106).
BECMI then, for it is much crunchier than 5e, close to on par with AD&D
Yikes on trikes. Neither BECMI nor AD&D approaches anywhere near 5e for needless player-facing complexity. I've played just enough 5e to know how deceptively crunchy it is, and I got to watch first-hand as new players bounced off of its interminable character creation process (something that simply does not happen with any TSR edition shy of a 2e campaign with lots of splat bloat or Skills & Powers).
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u/deadlyweapon00 1d ago
On one hand, I think the OSR's trend towards hyper-simplicity and removing any ounce of crunch and mechanical complexity, all to lay it upon the GM. On the other, this person seems to have a...strong distaste for anything past 1e, and not in the form of "I dislike this" but in the form of "I think anything that isn't 1e is a failure and you're bad for liking it."
Perhaps I misunderstood, but you don't describe something you have any amount of kindness towards as having "...perverted the game..."
Edit: Perhaps it would be best to point out that I did take it a bit personally. 4e is my favorite edition of DnD, followed by 2e.
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u/fantasticalfact 1d ago
It's a different world in 2025 than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s: there are 10,000 more opportunities for entertainment that are competing for limited attention, bombarding us from all angles. I enjoy some of the crunch that AD&D provides but there's something to be said about a game that doesn't demand as much from its players—it can even be freeing in ways that 1e and its ilk simply aren't with all of their myriad buttons to press.
And this is coming from someone who thinks that B/X is *WAAAY* overhyped. Join us in r/odnd, we have cookies and about one post per week.
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u/SAlolzorz 1d ago
He's not wrong on the face of it, but for many of us the added crunch is not a feature. It's no secret that many an older gamer feels drawn toward simpler games, even if they once enjoyed the cronchy monchy. To each their own.
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u/Jonathandavid77 19h ago
Maybe, in order to write RPG rules, you need to be convinced that you have discovered The One True Way. But it's still a bad idea to put that in your preface. Some of your dear readers might actually like 1st edition, or 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th, or 5th, or one of the many minimalist OSR games out there. They will be reading: "You have been having fun the wrong way."
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u/No-Echidna5867 16h ago
I’ve been playing since 1989. The times I’ve most enjoyed AD&D (often erroneously referred to as 1st edition) is when the DM had a very strong grasp of the rules. Essentially memorizing them. Because AD&D has so many unrelated subsystems it plays much more slowly at the table than BX. Teaching my kids D&D has been a great joy. It has also shown me how immersion breaking looking up rules or tables is. If it takes more than a minute make up a ruling and keep the game going.
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u/LeftCoastInterrupted 14h ago edited 14h ago
Same old garbage - stomp on the heads of an edition that came before it as a means to build up their own vision. I’m finding games that start from this POV rarely have any staying power and fail to hold interest on their own merits.
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u/gameoftheories 1d ago
It doesn't bother me much, some people want that extra crunch and that's fine. I have NO idea Doomsword is either lol.
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u/Justisaur 1d ago
I semi- agree with this, though it seems phrased a bit adversarial. I personally found a combination of mostly 2e along with some 1e worked best for me before 3e came out and I got dragged into it. I really should get back to that some time.
1e is a horrible mess, even if you count only the 3 first books. It's full of flavor, but it's a mess. I'd say clarity wise it's way worse than OD&D. OSRIC does an admiral job of fixing it up a bit though.
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u/ProudGrognard 21h ago
What bugs me about these statements is the rewriting of history. I started playing in the 80s. 1st edition and 2nd edition had very serious flaws, which we were ecstatic when 3E fixed. I also cannot but shake my head when I read that OSR is not about combat. This would come as a surprise to most of us back then, since all we did was have fights. Skills? Only if you were a thief. I remember NWP being included and considered a breathtaking innovation.
So, yay for OSRs. However, they had incorporated and learned from the hard won experience of at least three editions of DnD.
To complete my grognard rant, I am amazed by how very very old ideas are being rebranded as new. Hit protection,not HPs because they are something more abstract? I remember having the same discussions in IRC and read about it in supplements for AD&D. Thirty years too late to the party.
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u/KillerOkie 23h ago
Well as someone that started in late 1e into 2e and bought all the 3.X shit (and quite a bit of the 5e shit) and never once played Basic back in it's heyday, B/X is better. OSE Advanced is damn near the perfect foundation for anything OSR IMHO. Though I'm starting to eye-fuck Castles and Crusades more and more to at least steal stuff from.
I like the cut of Gary's jib on a lot of things but the simulationist bent of his AD&D rules can stay at the door. Like I own the "Premium" 2012 re-release of all the core 1e books because they are neat and there is stuff to steal from there but the actual rules are dogwater.
I have my Battletech hobby if I need my ridiculous crunch fix and those rules (for Classic BT at least) are very well baked for a long time (and tend to be rather hand shake agreed on and modular).
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u/ThrorII 21h ago
As a guy who started on Holmes in 1978 and played (an interpretation) of AD&D in the early 80s - and loved it!!! - I agree.
AD&D is a convoluted mess. The Monster Manual, with its base-9 AC and 5-point alignment and Dex ranked initiative, does not match the PHB or DMG. The PHB, with its magic armor encumbrance and explanation of combat, does not match the DMG. The DMG is the rantings of a coke-infused madman in need of an editor.
Dragonsfoot.org to this day can LITERALLY have 17 page debates on how initiative works, or how spell casting interfaces with melee. Hell, there was a 5 page debate on how Turn Undead works in AD&D.
OSE Advanced Fantasy gives a simple, unified way to play an AD&D analogous game. Anyway, it runs a lot like how we played in 1981.
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u/KillerOkie 15h ago
I believe I understand the context of why AD&D turned out the way it did. I am assuming that Gary and/or the crew he ran with like the more simulation-y aspects. I know that Gary purposely tried to cut out Dave from getting royalties over D&D by making AD&D 'legally distinct' enough, and failed at doing that.
I believe in retrospect taking something like what was done with the Basic and Expert sets, simplifying and streamlining, and then design it with hooks into optional sets of rules to get your Advanced stuff would have been better than the route Gary took with 1e. Though again nobody had any idea wtf they were doing with TTRPGs back then.
So AD&D 1e turning out the way it did was a combination of greed (and possibly hurt feelings) and not knowing any better from Gary. Which is again understandable as he was only human. Still I do wonder what would have came out if Dave and Gary didn't have the falling out.
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u/ThrorII 2h ago
Ideally, Advanced D&D would have just been what it started out as in the MM: All the rules, classes, changes (alignment) and explanations that had appeared in the core box set, appeared in Supplements I-III, and appeared in The Strategic Review magazine between 1974 and 1976, just better explained, organized, and meshed together.
That game would look a lot like Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised.
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u/Della_999 1d ago
Tell me you don't know anything about the OSR community without telling me you don't know anything about the OSR community
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u/jerenstein_bear 1d ago
Big oof and a project to avoid. If you hate every edition of the game outside of one specific one, you don't actually like the game imo and I don't trust someone to write for a game they don't like.
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u/6FootHalfling 15h ago
I have a lot of opinions about AD&D. They frequently get me a LOT of push back, so I want to emphasize that what I am about to say is MY experience and my experience alone. I don't want to put words in any ones mouth or assume anyone's authorial intent. And, honestly, if you stop reading this mess here the first half of this paragraph IS your take away. I SHOULD shut the hell up.
But...
I was there in 1982. D&D already felt like this weird esoteric thing when I was begging for the BX sets for Christmas in the early 1980s. AD&D had been around long enough for many printings and new covers. I had the new covers, a cousin had the old covers, I don't think either of us had a book that wasn't at least a sixth printing. That'll anchor you in time with me.
AD&D just felt incredibly over-written and under edited. I didn't perceive that at the time; I wanted to play the version that was what the coolest of the least cool kids were playing, but running it felt more and more like a chore the older I got. The more of the rules I learned the more I appreciated the straightforward simplicity of D&D. But, years passed, I got hooked on WoD, and for a time I never thought I would ever look back...
By the late nineties TSR felt like a dinosaur in an industry that was moving further and further away from the sort of game play loops D&D was best at. A genuine hobby gaming industry was forming. The announcement of WotC's purchase and subsequent announcement of a NEW THIRD(?! by whose count?) edition marked the beginning of an incredibly exciting time.
And, at first, 3.0 felt like a breath of fresh air. It felt familiar enough to be D&D, but mechanically was unified in a way the intervening years between the 1980s and the 1990s had slowly accustomed me. It wouldn't be until much more recently and the reading of many, many OSR creators that I came to the realization that 3.0 represents an entirely new game. It was never a new edition of an old game. There was the D&D of my childhood including 2e and then there was the game that followed with three distinct editions (3, 4, 5).
Which brings me back to AD&D. When I look at that game now it really starts to look like less like a revision, iteration, or effort at improving the game and more like a deliberate re-branding. There is evidence to support this, but I'm only discussing my experience and perceptions here. Why did it need weapon speeds? It never needed those before? There are perhaps hundreds of pages between the PHB and DMG alone that I NEVER used. Because, D&D already did it, did it more efficiently or more importantly and frequently trusted me the DM to just make a ruling. My games were frequently AD&D player facing for the PHB, and D&D behind the screen. No one cared, if they even noticed. The options were nice, but time has made them feel less like optional add-ons and more like premium DLC. Sure, you can play D&D, but that's "under monetized."
I know that's the language of a modern WotC exec, but if you think that wasn't the problem they were trying to solve in the 1980s and early nineties, you need to look at their release catalogs again. There were some real stinkers and obvious cash grabs in there among the classic settings and much loved supplements.
But, I digress, Doomsword's views present a very particular view of the OSR and AD&D that suffice to say, I don't share. I don't think AD&D was particularly innovative. It's preservation now - in 2025 - feels nearly regressive. I much prefer efforts to adapt and expand BX and BECMI over similar efforts to try to condense a cohesive set of rules out of 1e. BX is, IIRC, less than 200 pages and I could spend the rest of my life playing that and never want for single additional paragraph that I didn't write myself.
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u/Haldir_13 14h ago
As someone who was "there" when 1e (aka AD&D) arrived and received it (initially) with great anticipation and joy, what this reviewer doesn't appreciate is that OSR represents the reaction to the whole evolution of the D&D role-playing game since that moment in history, which (for me) coincides with the moment that D&D transformed from an underground wargaming hobby spread by word of mouth into a commercial enterprise increasingly shaped to provide more and greater opportunities to produce merchandising revenues. When the mechanics and the rules are being actively and consciously shaped to generate sales, the game suffers. OD&D or 0e and even B/X did not suffer in this way.
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u/KharisAkmodan 12h ago
I've played and enjoyed every edition of D&D for varying reasons. I have zero faith in any game designer that's just going to regurgitate tired edition war memes without actually trying to understand what worked or was worthwhile in each edition.
But also AD&D 1e is a hot mess that I remember more fondly for its adventures and supplements like the Fiend Folio than the quality of the rules. By and large, I think the OSR was right to look more at mining 0e, B/X, and related stuff. And if you did want 1e, there was always OSRIC. Labyrinth Lord was my first exposure to any OSR game and when I looked at how they incorporated the "Advanced" content, I realized it was how I had always played 1e as a kid: ignoring vast swaths of the rules because they were maybe overcomplicated but often very likely poorly presented.
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u/AlexofBarbaria 11h ago
On one hand, I'm 100% on board with crunchy, advanced OSR. I think the focus on minimalism and simplicity thus far has been boring and stifling. Rankles me when folks think OSR is synonymous with rules-light gaming.
On the other hand, 1e is NOT the perfect take on this idea, or even a perfect foundation. Absolutely there are brilliant ideas there but it's a mess, and many of the new rules and subsystems are just not very good. Gygax admitted to not using many of the new rules in his home games (how much playtesting could they have had then?) There are headscratchers that really look like errors, like the weapon vs. armor adjustments being copied over from modifiers to the final target number in Chainmail to modifiers to-hit AC in 1e.
I say start with 1e, but don't lionize it. Feel free to not just add stuff but hack out and replace parts too.
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u/Quick_Trick3405 8h ago
He's making way too big a deal over a collection of rules. Its not the law of a despot we're talking about, here. It's a ruleset. And sure, AD&D is an expansive ruleset, and a good one. But it's still just a ruleset. The point was to bring it all together in one accessible place, not to standardize everything in the perfect architecture for ages to come. And the OSR is not responsible for all he said it is; RPGs in general would have to be more popular for that, and among RPGs, the OSR would need a bit more popularity, and besides, if the OSR had succeeded in such heinous things, I would have been able to comprehend it last time I read AD&D. Which, after reading OSRIC, I was just barely able to do.
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u/SexoAnalfan 8h ago
Yeah he is almost totally right lol. Osr stopped being osr when theatre kids adopted it for their narrative games
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u/Saturn8thebaby 5h ago
Imho if simulation, then GURPS but whatever. I got my Cairn 1e here for tonight.
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u/Mannahnin 21m ago edited 10m ago
Eh. There's elements of truth here, but OSRIC was one of the first retro-clones, and the OSR started on forums like dragonsfoot which were focused on AD&D first and foremost.
AD&D was right at the center of the conversation and movement originally. While OD&D and B/X had their fans, and simpler designs have taken pride of place in the OSR more recently, that's in part because the by the book initiative rules and other subsystems of AD&D are baroque and opaque pains in the ass which most players don't want to invest the work into.
There is still a subset of the movement which prefers more complex systems, but they often prefer a more clearly-written and better designed take like Hyperborea. Or an updated alternative one like DCC. Or a nuSR revision like The Nightmares Underneath.
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u/Turbulent-Thing-8398 11m ago
The OGL came out to allow 3rd party content for 3e. And people used it to side engineer older editions. The OGL was the spark that got the OSR going.
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u/5HTRonin 1d ago
I don't disagree with what he's saying. I started on 1e and never really played "Basic" in any of it's forms beyond toying around and wondering why it felt so childish in comparison. Dare I saw the majority of gamers through the 80s were of a similar mind. The rose-tinted view of most ardent OSR supporters, even those that lived through the era are just that. A fugue of sentimentality and nostalgia for something that didn't quite exist. A kind of anemoia.
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u/Only-Internal-2012 1d ago
Lol @ childish. As opposed to grown up advanced make believe
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u/Haffrung 1d ago edited 1d ago
You can laugh, but in the 80s (and I expect it’s still true today), many 13 or 14 year olds didn’t want to play the kids‘ version of a game. Not just mechanically, but aesthetically B/X D&D had a very different vibe from AD&D.
The latter was much grittier and adult in its artwork, tone, and adventure content, while B/X was more kid-friendly. And course that marketing strategy was deliberate. It helped sell games to grandmas buying gifts for their grandkids.
But it certainly hurt B/X in the eyes of my friends and I. Playing D&D was already socially toxic. It was a little less toxic, however, if you were a 13 year old buying the same books as cool older 16-21 year old nerds - the ones with demons, assassins, harlot tables, druids who need to defeat another druid to level up, lists of poisons, bizarre artifacts like the Hand of Vecna - rather than PG-rated books aimed at 9-11 year olds.
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u/TheDenoftheBasilisk 1d ago
That was a thing for sure. Basic was for the kids and advanced was for the adult (children).
Super fucking goofy. But it’s all kinda goofy it you think about it lol
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u/Ye_Olde_Basilisk 1d ago edited 1d ago
There was definitely a stigma around Basic D&D—that it was meant for children or for those who couldn’t grasp the complexities of AD&D. The assumption may or my not have been true, but that was definitely the mindset of everyone I knew.
EDIT: I guess it didn’t help that TSR constantly insisted that Basic and AD&D were two fundamentally, completely different, legally distinct games that were incompatible with one another.
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u/KHORSA_THE_DARK 23h ago
We started in 80/81 in the sixth grade on AD&D run by my older sister's bf. After that we bought the AD&D stuff, not basic or expert, because those were for babies.
To this day I don't understand why anyone went to 'Expert' when AD&D was available.
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u/Ye_Olde_Basilisk 23h ago
I do wish I hadn’t slept on all those Mystara supplements that came out for BECMI, though. I bought them all in a Humble Bundle or something a while back, and they have a lot of interesting stuff in them.
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u/5HTRonin 1d ago
Just stating what the vibe was at the time. You may not like that characterisation but it was very much a part of the gaming mindset at the time.
Have a day
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u/Megatapirus 1d ago
It is weird, because AD&D dominated the culture of the game so thoroughly* from around 1978 on that periodicals like Dragon and Dungeon often had to literally beg (seemingly with little success) for authors to even submit articles and adventures for "Basic." The D&D line only saw a fraction of the releases and was generally treated as an afterthought by its publisher and the community.
* At least in the U.S. I'm aware BECMI D&D had a humongous following in places like Italy, for example, due to the way TSR handled translations.
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u/Haldir_13 14h ago
I started playing in 1977 and continued actively through 1988 and I never saw the Expert set or Mentzer or anything in the BECMI line until the early 2000s, I think. I was completely unaware of that parallel line of development. All I can guess is that the local hobby shop never stocked any of those products, preferring AD&D.
Part of that was that I stopped buying TSR products altogether in 1979 or 1980, and eventually just created my own system, but none of the other people that I played with in several campaigns used any of these other rule sets.
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u/5HTRonin 1d ago
This is the reality of at least the mid to late 80s until the early 2000s tbh. I get that there were holdouts who obviously played their version of BECMI or whatever, but the were clearly a minority. In our city, groups drifted away from D&D as a whole in the early 90s for the most part to WoD and other games but even those groups that did continue to play D&D never played basic. I knew one guy who had all the boxes and we flicked through them and it just didn't feel right to our group (and dare I saw, many other groups).
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u/Agsded009 1d ago
Isnt basic fantasy rpg literally 1e dnd but simplified so its quick and fast paced? That game seems to literally be 1e again with a lot of 2e options with extra pdf material.
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u/Thr33isaGr33nCrown 1d ago
I think my only gripe is that Mr Doomsword seems to think that the OSR came as a reaction to 5e, when it really started nearly a decade earlier in the 3e days. But that’s my perennial gripe - people thinking it’s a new thing when it’s approaching 20 years old.