Totally agree with you, Mike!

And Dave Arneson? Do not forget him, please.

Yes! Dave Armeson! Of course! OG designer!

There were so many people that were crucial to the games, world, and storytelling modalities that I loved. It’s hard to keep them all in my silly ape brain. 😂

Oh, poop. I’m replying on a different account. But yes, I agree 100%! Dave was part of my early gaming pantheon.

As I mentioned in my video on OD&D, the gaps in the early editions are essentially what birthed not only the D&D house ruling-fan culture, but also RPG game design in general. Within those gaps was the whole universe of gaming. More important than the rules was the promise and possibilities in the game.

I may eventually offer my perspectives on later editions like 4e and 5e, but, at the moment, my attention has been on other RPG systems including my own home brew systems. I’ve been thinking of sharing how I develop my short campaign “notebook” games.

@@nicholasbielik7156 I'd be interested in how you develop your campaigns. The real reason I became curious with old-school rules was trying to explore ways to provide enrichment for my first campaign. Ways to wield soft power to guide a narrative without impacting player agency. I was encouraged to explore BX/OSR and hex crawls, to gain a new perspective. So my curiosity over the evolution of the rule-set and the goals in each era stemmed from there. It seems with B/X it's low friction as long as you can rapidly furnish as you go. Since we play with the AD&D lineage 5e, I appreciate the modern efforts to reduce friction of a more complex time based system. But I think it could go a lot further, which is why I'm hopeful regarding the 5e24 action economy. (Which gets fixed on the ability/feat/spells block side, rather than any fundamental encounter format change.) But I'm really hoping to inject into my player's a sense of discarding the rules as much as possible, save for the scenarios that might require a balanced system to retain tension. (I.e. combat) I guess I'm always in conflict over using fiat to maintain tension, or truly leave it up to how my player's handle themselves. Provide them impetus, let it play out. From what I've gathered B/X might require more fiat, 5e tries to create a sense of fairness for letting the player's meet their fate. In particular because 5e is less deadly given player's are strategic, while B/X seems more deadly at all times and might require DM intervention to craft the macro scenario. I love both ideas, never sure how to balance the two. Especially when it comes to setting player expectation for a scenario. (Sorry this was long.) My main insight is it's less about crafting rules, but crafting story on the fly. I can't shake the imagery of burning through torches, staking doors open, and relying on your lone dwarf with Infravision to when torches run out. Clearly systems encourage a style of play, whether they are made on the fly, or homebrewed from the start. But will modern player's want to engage at the level, when so many more heroic freedoms are promised... outside of combat alone? That's my challenge as a new DM with these old-school new-school ideas.

This was pointed out below by another commenter, and you are both indeed correct. Here’s what I wrote below to explain some of why that passage for me was never very apparent: “Thanks for locating this. I see what the passage is indicating , but I guarantee you I’ve read that section half a dozen times and missed the key bit. The phrase “Their commencement” might have been the factor there-if you’re not keeping the antecedent of the pronoun clearly in mind you can miss it. He never formally establishes the antecedent for “their” in a sentence, but instead relies on the antecedent being established by the section title which is odd. The subsequent sentences don’t do the passage any favors either because you move onto untangling them instead of fully absorbing what he just told you. It’s an incredible important knot of rules that needs to be called out a bit better imo. I realize plenty of folks read that passage and probably understood it no problem, but I have seen pages long threads on Dragonsfoot and elsewhere debating the point. I can only say that is likely due to the way the rules are presented.”

I started with BECMI and moved on to 2nd ed. I find this kind of discussion fascinating. It seems typical for 1st ed particularly though not exclusively. It goes to show why many people went with "ok, let's just do it this way". 😅

I agree with you. And different DMs played stuff differently until maybe they became players in each others' games, and then the systems gradually moved towards whatever your overall group found fairest/most intuitive. For example, I use the cleric turning tables for most thief skills, since they model a PC improving while the challenges they face also get harder.

Thanks for locating this. I see what the passage is indicating , but I guarantee you I’ve read that section half a dozen times and missed the key bit. The phrase “Their commencement” might have been the factor there-if you’re not keeping the antecedent of the pronoun clearly in mind you can miss it. He never formally establishes the antecedent for “their” in a sentence, but instead relies on the antecedent being established by the section title which is odd. The subsequent sentences don’t do the passage any favors either because you move onto untangling them instead of fully absorbing what he just told you. It’s an incredible important knot of rules that needs to be called out a bit better imo. I realize plenty of folks read that passage and probably understood it no problem, but I have seen pages long threads on Dragonsfoot and elsewhere debating the point. I can only say that is likely due to the way the rules are presented.

@@nicholasbielik7156 Thanks so much for the prompt and magnanimous response. I do not doubt you've seen the threads. The first sentence tells us spells' details are in the PHB. The "their" is both there, and, as you say, in the title. The debate is, as it should be, about whether one prefers to use a rule or not, as Gary often said. Full disclosure: I like many, never read these texts carefully as a kid. Most of us jumped in after being shown a bit by an older sibling or friend. In hind sight, most enthusiasts got by with charts and matrices. The "high Gygaxian" is beyond the ken of most children, including both the syntax and the vocabulary. Post 1980s texts will say the spell begins and ends. With AD&D they commence and culminate. You and I could go on and on about this. I will add that for most guys our age we remember sifting and delving through these texts when we just skimmed over them. Eight and ten year olds' impressions and conceptions of the passage of time differs from someone our own age now. We often, erroneously, think we spent more time than we did reading these texts. AD&D is an elegant system. I argue it's NOT complicated. The system's synergy is lost on most. Casting times, durations, areas of effect, initiative, surprise, encumbrance, morale, and especially, the infamous AC adjustments for weapons just weren't used by most players and DMs. Maybe older teens and adults could comprehend the texts in 1979, but eschewed those rules that presented tactical and strategic challenges to the PCs. Even most KZfaq commentators don't seem to understand what Gary clearly says about combat. The d20 roll is NOT one swing of a weapon. That explains the hp system that is contingent upon and experience level. So few used surprise, because, no surprise, it could be certain death for a PC, especially on mid-high levels. If a carrion crawler gets 3 surprise segments (rounds), it gets 24 paralytic attacks vs. a PC! Let's all commentators be frank about that, eh?

Exactly. I was like ten when I was trying to parse these passages! I love this edition, but it’s been interesting to see it in a new light as an adult. I realize that, holy cow, I’m now a decade older than Gygax was when he wrote these rules. I go back and forth about loving AD&D’s “completeness” and OD&D’s wild and woolly openness, but I’m clearly obsessed by both of these games.

@@nicholasbielik7156 I think a lot of the problems come from the fact that the game was born out of war gaming. There would be no confusion for artillery fired on one round to impact on another round latter on. Without this background, actions extending into following rounds, turn, etc. can be frustrating. Same with inches movement scale vs feet in spell descriptions

There’s so many rules regarding combat in AD&D that it’s easy to miss them. Often we see the game experience at the table being shaped by what rules you ignore and which you don’t. I’ll give a think to doing a video on how I interpret how things should go in the “swirling melee” of combat.

Yeah, that’s pretty much my take. Gygax even has a whole thing where he points out magic wands and staves are superior to spells as they don’t have casting times. It occurs to me that there is probably a Sage Advice column that addresses this, but the rules certainly aren’t very clear about all this.

@@nicholasbielik7156 for sure - I always got the impression that he wrote in such a way that presumes the reader had some prior knowledge of what he was talking about.

got to that point and beyond!😉 the time to really deal with this stuff is when, irl u cannot gather everyone to game together and perhaps only the dm and one of the party is available..higher level characters require lots of alone time to deal with their lands, etc.

That's exactly what I run, 45% 1st edition, 45% 2nd edition, and 10% Ed ed. Rough estimates of course, like and DM would make!

"The Black Sabbath" of RPGs is a great way to describe AD&D. I'm glad you're enjoying the channel!

I pointed out in my video on OD&D that OD&D was sort of a “make a game” kit rather than what might be considered a proper game. In this light, AD&D is essentially Gygax’s fully expanded version of OD&D. It’s a monumental piece of work. It has a strong identity of its own, and this means it clearly isn’t going to be for everyone. If you’re a bit of a mad scientist, a tinkerer, or a free wheeler then OD&D is clearly going to be more your jam.

Some people want to build a car in their garage and some folks want to walk into a dealer and buy a car. AD&D is like buying a fussy sports car that you’re probably going to have to tinker with to get it to do what you want, but it certainly isn’t a “assemble your own car” kit.

@@nicholasbielik7156 I'll need to watch that next then! I'm inclined to agree with you; for me it's better to have-- and be trained to use-- that make-a-game kit. You really can't anticipate everything in design, and even if you do, players will inevitably disagree with some aspect of the "official" system. Then they'll play it that way anyway simply because it's "official," grumbling about it the whole time. We seem to crave orthodoxy even when it is destructive.

I think my point was that the rules of AD&D demanded that sort of approach, or you were going to run into problems if you expected the game to have solved for you what are seemingly central issues. Gygax throws DMs in the pool and says "swim!" However, this approach WAS super functional for lots of and lots of DMs, so I'm not being critical here.

I like the plethora of monsters and spells and some of the additional sub-systems. I think a lot of DMs look at the game like a buffet and gorge themselves on the stuff that they like. My recent DM used D6 side initiative for instance, but ignored things like the weapons vs. armor charts and modifiers.

@@Samwise7RPG that’s a pretty common change. Gygax reportedly never used the weapons vs armor charts though I know people have said using that stuff does significantly change the game.

That chart reminded me of my Rolemaster Standard System days with Arms Law. :D

@@Samwise7RPG I’m probably going to do a video on Rolemaster at some point. I’ve had the RM2 books for years, and I am fascinated by the game though I’ve never run it.

Hahahha, wrote this too quick, you then immediately discuss the secondary skills.

Not that hard to run. Use a 10 segment combat Round. First option - all spells resolve on round 10 if they would go into the next round. Second - spells taking effect in the next round will take effect without interruption. Think of a capacitor charging up and then discharging. MU declares spell, rolls initiative and takes their turn. Spells can only be interrupted if the enemy attacks while the caster is in the middle of casting on that round. I have seen an initiative board used with two rounds worth of combat and chits used to track who and what goes when. Once you get used to running it, it just becomes second nature - like time tracking while the players explore.

@@Marcus-ki1en Sure, but that's still house ruling to cover gaps that don't have to be there in the first place. Start spells on one and there's no need.

@@willmistretta But doesn't that mean that spell casters always go first on their round? Bit of an advantage to casters...

@@Marcus-ki1en Nope. The PHB rules for spell interruption work just fine as written this way (WSF vs. casting time in melee, other attacks coming on caster's initiative segment, etc.) There a PDF summary/FAQ called ADDICT that you can find via Google that breaks it all down.

Absolutely. The game wouldn’t exist without him. Please see my discussions of Origins of D&D and OD&D. But Dave didn’t write a word of the AD&D rules as they were apparently written to avoid Gary having to consider Dave’s competing ideas about what D&D should be and also to avoid having to pay him royalties. See Jon Peterson’s book The Game Wizards for more information. All these weird rules I talk about here are 100% Gary Gygax.

Anthony Huso on his blog “The Blue Bard” is probably the best advocate for AD&D 1e that I’ve ever run across, but I think that much of this comes down to what you are looking for in a game.