Still I think AD&D is an interesting set of rules, and I find it delivers a somewhat different gaming experience when compared to B/X as well as to OD&D. At this point I'm doubtful of mixing those rules sets however. I know it's been done "back in the day" and I tried it myself, but I think they each work best with their own material and in their own play styles.
I once tried a head to head comparison of OD&D vs. AD&D, rolled up 6 Characters and ran them through a bunch of wilderness encounters in a solo game, trying to honor every rules bit I came across. First of all, OD&D and AD&D both work very well for this kind of play style, just like Classic Traveller does. However doing this with OD&D went so much quicker than with AD&D. It starts with character creation and doesn't end with Composition of forces ... honestly I kind of lost interest doing this with AD&D but would always love to run yet another game with OD&D.
Anyway, I love to play "full stack" D&D with castles, serious party sizes, naval battles and also dungeon crawls. These systems (A/OD&D) are true campaign games, and that's why some of their seemingly weird or superflous rules are what they are. I don't think B/X and friends can deliver on this broader scope, even if they easily win the award for best edited edition of classic D&D. That's why OD&D is my favourite D&D and AD&D can only be second.
Alright, sorry for ranting, game on!
CC: @randomwizard@vivaldi.net @phf@tabletop.social @DM_Zeppelin@dice.camp @kyonshi@dice.camp
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@lkh @Craig @phf @DM_Zeppelin @kyonshi
Super interesting experience. The world is a varied place.
In my little corner of the world, in the 80s, we played Redbox D&D, and then slowly incorporated things from AD&D as time went by as we discovered AD&D. There was also this "air of condescending looks" from AD&D players on our little endeavors. But we were young and everyone was stupid.
When I got older, I am practically the only one who will run a game and I have always been tinkering, so it is like a continuation of the old days... AD&D has rangers! using that! AD&D has races and then you can pick different classes. using that! AD&D has weapon speed factors. Well, uh, ok, maybe not using that.
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@randomwizard @lkh @Craig @phf @DM_Zeppelin I mean, I came to DnD later than to other games, but I am forever chasing that sort of pure DnD experience that I never actually had at the time (we played DSA back then). And it's a lightweight kind of DnD that's almost, but not quite B/X with ADnD bolted on.
I think inspired by some of the early crpgs I played when I was a kid.
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So far just about every DnD experience I had seemed just a bit tangential to what I was looking for, and so the quest goes ever on.
CC: @randomwizard@vivaldi.net @Craig@dice.camp @phf@tabletop.social @DM_Zeppelin@dice.camp
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@lkh @randomwizard @Craig @phf @DM_Zeppelin it's not ADnD 2e, as I played that and it never was quite what I wanted
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@kyonshi @lkh @randomwizard @Craig @phf @DM_Zeppelin For me, starting with Holmes & OD&D, I hated AD&D 1E, 2E was a little better, but B/X & BECMI were also too far another direction, taking away options. OSR has been a huge help.
Swords & Wizardry, Blueholme, & Basic Fantasy are a spectrum from very like OD&D to very like B/X, but more flexible. Old School Essentials & Shadowdark are much more variant, but still have that tone of little guys against a very hard world.
#ttrpg #dnd #osr
@kyonshi Coming from DSA/TDE, too, AD&D 2E felt quite similar, strong focus on settings, while being a lot more powerful. But the Forgotten Realms and I will never be truly friends, and Dark Sun is more a sometimes setting. We didn't use a lot of adventures back then, and that meant going with my default DM style, which – especially at that time – couldn't really be described as D&D-ish.
So, as with many others, I'm also still looking for my perfect D&D-ish style, too. There's some really good essence there that I want to extract for myself, some style of my own that's still tied to the "gestalt" of the sub-genre. It certainly isn't torch-counting or name level project management, that I'm sure. Simple classes, yes, too simple "universal" rules, no. Hexploration, Wilderlands style, yes, but with some more bones to the setting. That puts me in an odd spot in the hobby right now, there's enough check every item there, but not in the combination I want, usually. I probably should build more myself instead of just browsing through retroclones, heartbreakers and settings…