Is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Still Worth Playing in 2024? on The Gaming Gang Dispatch EP 1087

[@KabukiKid]

My group STILL played AD&D 1e (with some B/X stuff too), so it is doing something right if we have been using it for more than 40 years. ;-) Still my all-time favorite game.

[@Wraithing]

Up until now, OSE Advanced has been great for me when I want to go back to the old days. As with many other folks, I still have my AD&D stuff - along with all my favourite BECMI D&D books - but OSE has great layout and cuts the verbose language (and I do like the simplicity of ascending AC), so lots easier for table reference. Now - since you pulled me around to the idea of backing C&C! (awesome idea BTW) - I reckon that'll be the next version of D&D I bring to the table!!

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

I haven't looked through my ADnD books in many years. This is a blast from the past. 😊

[@hasturhastur]

My group hasn’t stopped playing it.

[@quantus5875]

I love AD&D 1e !! IMO easily the best D&D edition followed close behind by AD&D 2e (brother and sisters editions -- as they are both very similar -- mainly just the removal of a few things from the satanic panic movement). I play Castles & Crusades now with all my old AD&D 1e and 2e modules and setting material. So, for me the AD&D 1e spirit lives on with C&C. The Troll Lords made C&C to pay homage to AD&D 1e.

[@pwr41]

Maybe the greatest thumbnail ever? 😃 Nicely done Jeff! I still have my books but don't play AD&D anymore.

[@quantus5875]

Jeff -- again as usual great video!! Wow -- your versions of the AD&D 1e books are in really good condition. Yes -- I always think it's funny that books acquired on the secondary market are usually better than books that were originally purchased. My books are still good but not as good as yours.

[@quantus5875]

OSRIC is the closest OSR TTRPG to AD&D 1e, but two other great options for playing AD&D styles game are Castles & Crusades and Labyrinth Lord. Labyrinth Started life from B/X but with the advanced compendium material IMO is aligned really well with AD&D 1e. (it's not as close as OSRIC but IMO the 2nd closest TTRPG after OSRIC if you want to play close to AD&D 1e.) C&C uses D&D 3e mechanics but it's basically The Troll Lords saying let's make AD&D 1e with D&D 3e mechanics and let's ditch feats and skills and instead add an attribute check mechanic to replace it. Played many of my old AD&D 1e modules with C&C and so east to use AD&D 1e and 2e material with C&C. Other good options that work -- although not as close to AD&D 1e as OSRIC, C&C, or LL -- IMO are OSE and Basic Fantasy -- although really most OSR TTRPGs will work.

[@Arthineas]

To be honest Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is still my favorite edition. If I am going to play a modern day D&D like game, my RPG of choice is Castles and Crusades not D&D 5e.

[@daves6220]

The Black Blade Publishing OSRIC book is of excellent quality, I highly recommend it for your bookshelf.

[@SteveDahlskog]

I “love” the ‘now at the snack bar’ has this “nice” brown color in the images of the snacks. Mmm. Brown. 😮

[@Thegaminggang]

That's more due to the age of the film than anything. ~ Jeff

[@arielcarmona6660]

1e is my favorite not just for the nostalgia. Although that is a big part of it. The orange spined books are awful in the sense that they don't hold up, in the sense they aren't that durable. I had to buy the DM guide twice already lol.

[@n.ludemann9199]

AD&D 2e is still my primary system, together with Oe (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry). I also like 1e, but not as much as 2e and 0e.

[@Thegaminggang]

I never delved into 2E D&D but, over the years, heard good things about the mechanical approach and presentation. I never poked around because of the overblown changes due to the Satanic Panic. ~ Jeff

[@n.ludemann9199]

@@Thegaminggang My wife will not play anything more modern than 3e, she outright refuses playing anything newer by WotC. She considers playing ToV and Advanced 5e now. We are playing a short 50th Anniversary Campaign of Oe for a few months. I dm'ed a game of Oriental Adventures 3 years ago for my daughter and her friends and they loved it. I happily dm Oe to 2e (including Basic) - and my friends enjoy them all...

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

"Pushes their glasses up on their nose" lol

[@matthewconstantine5015]

Holy nuts! Watching this on Memorex and KZbin has gone crazy with ad interruptions. I hope they're passing some of that revenue on to you. Jeez. I know I've blahed about it before, but DCC is still the closest thing to D&D I actually enjoy playing. The only other game I can think of that's even in the ballpark is Earthdawn. Just not a fan of class/level stuff. Feels too much like a board game/video game.

[@Thegaminggang]

I think it was doing that during the live stream too. I don't know because it doesn't show on my end. ~ Jeff

[@matthewconstantine5015]

@@Thegaminggang ​ They're definitely getting weirder. I usually get at least one ad break during your live streams. Normally not more than one or two if I watch it after the fact. Today, there was an ad break every 3 to 5 minutes. But then, they put ads in within my videos, not just at the start, and I don't even qualify for their revenue sharing thingy. They really seem to have gone slap-happy with ads, even more than before.

[@dungeondumbo]

Hi Jeff, have you got your comment filter set to high? I tried to comment (and not in any bad way) but it deleted it.

[@Thegaminggang]

I haven't touched the comment filter. ~ Jeff

[@dungeondumbo]

@@Thegaminggang oh well, guess the computer didn’t like me talking about Paranoia! Lol😂

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

I'm watching this later (not live stream), and there are some dropped frames, but it's far feom unwatchable. Oh well

[@Thegaminggang]

It was a KZbin thing last night. We've seen it happen from time to time. As you saw during the show, I ran some tests and everything on my end was fine. ~ Jeff

[@needmorecowbell6895]

My biggest problem with AD&D is gold as XP and the game economy. The problem is that gold quickly loses its value because you have more than characters can spend and characters are walking around with a golf bag full of magic weapons. The obvious solution, a magic shop, doesn't fix the problem. If the value of magic items are linear, then players quickly trade their low power magic items for a much more powerful one. If the value of magic items is exponential, then you have players trading their higher value items, for many more low level items and becoming more powerful than if they had kept the more powerful weapon.

[@zantharian57]

Gold is XP is actually the superior way of doing it. It avoids DM Fiat in assigning gold and XP earned, which puts a lot more agency in the player's hand and is therefore better. The problem that you mentioned with the players ending up with so much gold they don't know what to do with it. Maybe a problem of how you guys are running your game? Gold isn't just for magic items, there should be a lot of faction play where you are paying for favor, passage, rare ingredients to open a portal, etcetera but also once you get to higher level there is also domain play where the players should be building structures, keeps, and so on. Also magical research and creating magic items or scrolls that are custom is very very expensive.

[@zantharian57]

I've heard some people before saying that they don't like domain play and they don't plan on ever building a wizard tower or a castle of their own etcetera. If that's the case then The simple solution is to make gold give multiple XP per gold. That way the XP keeps coming in at the same rate but the gold doesn't go up as fast.

[@needmorecowbell6895]

@@zantharian57 I mostly play older editions of the game. There wasn't factional play, back then. You look at these old modules and it's kick down doors, kill monsters, and loot. And it really doesn't fix the problem, anyway. If your dungeon has all this treasure, then trying to pay for passage, favor, etc, is meaningless. The inhabitants are just as likely to pay for PCs to leave, because they have more gold than the characters. There really were not rules for crafting and domain play meant retirement.

[@taccntb4345]

@@needmorecowbell6895 no xp for finding gold.

[@dungeondumbo]

I’ve always scratched my head with Paranoia. I played a couple of games back in the day and it was very confusing. I don’t know if the GM messed up but the game we played was a mess of wet suits, and backstabbing. I didn’t understand what was happening, maybe that was the point 😂

[@pawibus]

Per Betteridge's Law, no.

[@Thegaminggang]

Wrong...

[@Wraithing]

Robin Ince covered this (and had Betteridge on as a guest) in a great little BBC Radio 4 series called 'Laws That Aren't Laws' - it's currently still on BBC Sounds. Murphy's Law and the Peter Principle are among the five other Q.I. type quarter hour episodes. Well worth a listen, especially if you're certain your dropped toast always lands butter-side down.