The History of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Patreon: / dmitall
We've been meaning to follow up on our video detailing the history of Original D&D. So today, we finally continue our discussion with the history of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, aka 1st Edition. We discuss not only some of the major changes from the previous edition but also some of the messy history that was going on behind the scenes. It involves not only corporate politics and backstabbing but also paranoia about Satanism and witchcraft.
Music: AD&D: Eye of the Beholder (SNES)
Main Source: The Game Wizards - The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons by Jon Peterson
Chapter:
0:00 Intro
3:37 Core Rules
15:22 Controversy
31:00 Conclusions
Video Game Clips: AD&D: Cloudy Mountain (Winslinator), AD&D: Pool of Radiance (Sinator), Final Fantasy Tactics (StoneMonkWisdom, Velius99), Final Fantasy 1 NES (Shane Christensen), Final Fantasy 12 PS2 (finalfantasy.fandom.com), Fire Emblem GBA (SlimKirby), Baldur's Gate (lilura1.blogspot.com), Age of Empires 4 (rockpapershotgun.com), Marvel Future Revolution (Johnny Blaze Gaming), Fortnite: Battle Royale (Cralin), World of Warcraft (icy-veins.com), Valheim (pcgamesn.com, Kristian Bjerke), Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (mariowiki.com), God of War PS4 (wechoiceblogger.com), Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Saturday Night Slammasters
Book Images: Dragon Magazine, Wilderness Survival Guide, Whitebox, Greyhawk Supplement, Rules Cyclopedia, White Dwarf, Fiend Folio, Against the Giants, Monster Manual, Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Handbook, Oriental Adventures, Night of the Seven Swords, Unearthed Arcana, TSR Silver Anniversary Set, Dragonlance Chronicles Trilogy, Dragons of Despair, Needle, Marvel Comics Conan the Barbarian, Flint Dille's The Gamesmaster: Almost Famous in the Geek 80s, Sagard The Barbarian, Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D, Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons
Other: 60 Minutes D&D Special (OKeijiDragon), Masters of Fantasy (SyFy Channel), Dark Dungeons (chick.com), Dungeon! Ad (ewjxn), Lake Geneva Regional News (grognardia.blogspot.com), , Katriina Hospital in Vantaa by Antti Yrjonen, Alchemist at Furnace with Large Reciever by Wellcome Images (Wikimedia Commons), Welcome to Michigan State University East Lansing by Ken Lund, Tunnel Vision Ontario Canada by Alex Luyckx, Tactical Wargaming 2015 by Chris Brooks (Flickr.com), 10750 Network Concept (freebie.photography), The Truth About Taxes 1940, County Government 1951, Taxidermic Owlbear, Mazes and Monsters by Rona Jaffe, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century AD, Spider-Man 2002 Film

[@richardbeck8945]

I met Gary Gygax in the mid 00’s at a local gaming convention. He was very generous with his time and was nice enough to sign all my 1st edition original artwork books and modules with his name as the author. They were all over 20 yrs old by then and well worn. He liked how much use they had gotten.

[@NerdHerdForLife]

It's amazing how I can see one comment talk about how patient and nice Gygax was then another one say he was kind of stand offish and a bit of a dick.

[@cinderguard3156]

​@NerdHerdForLife, from what I understand, he may have been kinda both depending on the time.

[@mookiewilson4166]

Gary Gygax and I used to date. He would drown cats in a bucket full of hot sauce to achieve an erection. Very sweet man though.

[@BanjoSick]

@@cinderguard3156 Like everyone else.

[@boardrider71]

I remember the “Satanic Panic” quite well. I was 11 and my mom took our books away. Sadly, we never saw them again. My friends dad played D&D and being good kids we walked right on over there and played. Fast forward a ton of years, and my mom introduced me to WoW. I looked at her and said “Better turn that s$&@ off or the Devil will get ya”. 😀 I have now been running campaigns for my kids and I think this summer I’ll get more family over.

[@ILoveEvadingTax]

you have a greater patience with your mother than I could have, trying to kill your hobby as a child while years later indulging in something that was functionally identical years later. Appreciate this must have been decades later and a lot must have changed so I really hope she apologised to you and hope that knows what she did, thats all I'll say

[@boardrider71]

She does feel bad now, and kicks herself from time to time. I run my quest ideas by her and she will tell me if it makes sense or not. She has even had me change an idea for a side quest so much that it wasn’t close to the same, but it worked in the overall scheme of things. She still won’t play the game but she does have her own mini just incase :) However, I did remind her that helping tweak the quest is playing the game.

[@ILoveEvadingTax]

@@boardrider71 That's really nice, and I'm glad for both of you

[@PMandrekar]

I was lucky in that my parents didn't know what to make of it, so they watched us play AD&D when we were 11 and 12 and came to the conclusion that it was just harmless fun. My father actually commented that the only 'danger' is that we would pick up some probability theory. Dad was a professor of probability theory and at the time (early 1980's) was chairman of the Michigan State University department of Statistics and Probability.

[@lee-daniels]

My grandmother asked me about it when she saw the book covers. My parents trusted me and I was a geek so they figured I was harmless and would make smart choices.

[@niklass1641]

We had a dwarf in the party in the old days who was dead set on using every ability to it's fullest. I'll never forget his constant inquiries about the dungeon... _"Is this passage... sloping??"_

[@watchmanschannelofdespair]

Lol One of those. Good to have in a party though, very into the game and their character's traits and abilities.

[@Bluecho4]

@@watchmanschannelofdespair I mean, if you had to give up various things, like access to higher levels in certain classes, due to a "non-human PC tax", you're going to want to wring as much value from that choice as possible. They ARE going to make the ability to detect slopes work for them, dammit!

[@Svartalf14]

Given how some trick orinented DMs could use such things to get you lost and on a much harder level than you'd like to be at, I can understand the paranoia.

[@user-cx7kg6ok9b]

@@Bluecho4 I used to play a thief character. I always carried a ball bearing just to put on the floor to see if it was sloping. More accurate than relying on a dwarf's dumb luck in rolling a die...

[@Stormcrow147]

I remember that. My player always asked the elevation Everytime he moved, even if he never left the room.

[@panderson9561]

I've played D&D since the winter of 1975/76. I can remember when AD&D came out, there was a lot of reluctance from some people to transition from D&D to AD&D. Partly it was based upon the books not all coming out at the same time...as mentioned in this video. Others just saw AD&D as over complicating what they viewed as nothing more than a way to kill a few hours here and there. I also remember the controversy surrounding D&D and devil worship. I found out several years after the fact that some of the kids in our school thought we were Satan worshipers because we were always talking about throwing fireballs, and killing dragons. It's laughable to think back on that.

[@carso1500]

Curious how there has always been controversy about new editions

[@Silversmith70]

I played during the demon craze time. Back then D&D wasn't cool, if you told non D&Ders, they would laugh even mock you. But for those that understood what it was, we had some of the best times in my life. I still get chills thinking about those adventures. Thank you D&D, I owe you much.

[@williamschlueter6446]

in 6th grade our dnd sessions got cancelled due to columbine. I was soo pissed. I would get in trouble and refuse to do my work saying that the columbine shooters used pencil in school, so if i can't play dnd, I can't use the pencil. I was young, I didn't win lol.

[@tascosaeagle]

My 1st wife never understood the game but she tolerated my obsession during the demonizing wars. Ilost all my rule books & over 4 dozen modules when we got divorced. But my love has lasted30 years to include combat in Iraq followed by playing during prison ! Great marathon sessions lasting 8- 15 hour sessions in the barracks as we gorged on pizza cuz they delivered 24/7 .

[@pm_davidjones]

And suddenly, I am 12 years old again. Seeing the cover art of the PHB teleports me back in time to sitting with neighborhood friends huddled over a kitchen table littered with graph paper and dice. Garret and Brian's mom bringing us sun tea that has been brewing out on the pack porch, fueling the uncountable hours playing over summer vacation. Many a sister's jewelry boxes were 'borrowed' to house our prized lead figurines. Thanks for bringing back those memories.

[@findmestudios]

I found my dad’s old Players Handbook and Monsters Manual when I was a kid and that’s how I learned about DnD. I didn’t understand it but I loved just flipping through the monster manual. I played 5e in high school and now am in love with OSRs and am making my own rule system. I still like to flip through the ADND stuff sometimes.

[@ajwickham7917]

Holy cow, hearing the part about followers being an assumed transition into wargaming was like finding a missing puzzle piece. I've never understood how those rules were meant to be used but now they make total sense!

[@ILoveEvadingTax]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mmS5nmp-r9Vnm5Y Questing Beast as well goes into a very overlooked feature found in old DnD campaigns that I think liven up worlds immensely

[@JoeyJoJoJoestarJuniorShabadoo]

I think it's mentioned in another video but old D&D also had rules for controlling entire armies in pitched battles lead by your high level characters. Another part of its wargaming lineage.

[@shep1807]

Yeah, the followers just became the people at you keep/temple whatever. We weren't into mass combat war

[@DocZom]

As an AD&D DM in the 80s, the players in my campaigns would travel with their entourages, who would be charged with scouting, guarding the camp, etc. A few might flesh out the dungeon party as NPCs run by the players. Those NPCs could also gain levels, but many did not survive. Monster fodder, don't you know? 👿

[@kevinsullivan3448]

@@shep1807 Sometimes we would take henchmen on adventures to carry loot and fill support roles. But it could be a huge pain to administrate all the NPCs.

[@SilverionX]

Sweden had it's own roleplaying boom in the 80's with similarly confusing and complicated rules and the same type of art. I can still remember the smell of old books in my friends apartment as we played after school, and the adventures we had. It's been almost 30 years now. Where did the time go?

[@ScrappyXGC]

Haha, I used to buy books and dice from a store (mostly books) from one called "The Lion And The Dragon" I know that smell. I like GURPS, it's simple. As a GM I've never used a "screen" like I did as a DM. My players have written novels with me. A journey, a story. Purpose was to challenge.

[@BanjoSick]

Same in Germany. Our local games outsold D&D over here until the 2000’s when the OGL boom steam rolled the industry. Impressive what Sweden, ehh Free League did in the last 10 years putting Sweden on the map inna similar way how the Göteborg bands did for Heavy Metal.

[@MrHighlander666]

Still have all my AD&D books and adventures. Massive part of my life from ages 12-18. Now almost 30 years later I'm thinking of starting a new campaign!

[@fcon2002]

My mother recently passed away. Upon cleaning out her house, I found she kept all my AD&D stuff packed and put away (1st edition and also a couple of 2nd addition). Now, I too I am reading through the books and thinking whether it would still be fun to do again at 58 years old!

[@operative2136]

Got all mine as well including my copy Deities and Demigods that had the Lankhmar pantheon and such that had to be removed in Legends and Lore due to copyright. Gotta say, I'm actually impressed with how well they've held up over the years. Obviously they're not in mint condition but none of the pages are falling out and the bindings are surprisingly intact.

[@BrianJNelson]

Same. My books are treasured posessions.

[@guyfrattallone6029]

Sounds good. Never give up! My group has been together since 1995. Every Sunday from 7-10 pm. I must be doing something right. (Except for the 2009 to 2011 rules incident that is.)

[@CaptainHDY]

Same here, have just about everything avalable for 2nd edition and not gonna give Hasbro a dime more past the 100.00 or so I spent on the 3 core books from 3rd edition

[@Murph_.]

Deities and Demigods was my favorite addition. Gave me years of reading and learning about mythology and various cultures. I learned so much BECAUSE of that book.

[@inhocsignovinces1419]

Excellent synopsis of TSR’s business history. We used to run campaigns at a local gaming store (now defunct Aero Hobbies which had been located within the City of Santa Monica, California). The original owner of Aero Hobbies (Gary Switzer, Requiescet in pace) was the creator of D&D’s “Thief/rogue” class and offered his class creation to E. Gary Gygax who accepted it and incorporated it within the D&D/AD&D rule sets.

[@stevekillgore9272]

Aero Hobbies closed ? Damn. RIP.

[@guyfrattallone6029]

The thief class really needed a sneaking procedure don't you think? In all that time, I don't think I ever saw an article in dragon magazine with one.

[@havable]

@@guyfrattallone6029 It generally went like this. "Can I sneak up on 'im, DM? Please please please"

[@dambrooks7578]

The in depth look at the business of AD&D, failings even. Alarmingly, it is incredibly exactly what Games Workshop has transitioned into with no care for the fans/customers of their products.

[@guyfrattallone6029]

@@dambrooks7578 what do you mean? What are games workshop player asking for?

[@grey_wulf]

I remember back in the early/mid 80s as an inquisitive 11-12 year old , I was introduced to AD&D from my friend's older brother (who was 15-16 years old). Played it all summer and had an absolute blast! Good times.

[@emssmiley2002]

Had been playing AD&D at the same time. But this little company, GDW came out with Twilight 2000, played it until we graduated high school and went down our own paths.

[@amphionification]

It was 1983 for me. It was a life changing event for sure.

[@loke6664]

I didn't start with D&D but "Basic Roleplaying" back in late 1984 and got in to AD&D a couple of years after that. I kinda miss AD&D though, while the balancing was wonky and the rulebooks were a bit unclear I could always feel the passion of the creators. Modern D&D (particularly 4th edition) have felt more like a product then a work of passion and I enjoyed the named classes and things like your high level thief creating his or her own thieves guild. I have been working on a new AD&D campaign to introduce the game to some younger friends who missed the entire classic AD&D era of the 80s but Covid put the entire thing on ice. I still plan to start this autumn, going full out with minis, 3D dungeons and tons of visual aides to make the game world feel a bit more magical for them. Roleplaying in the 80s were a bit different today. Luckily my parents weren't stupid enough to fall for the "Satanist recruitment" media hype, having the kids at their place or one of their friends during the weekend playing game sounded like we would get into less trouble then if we were running around town and they had a point.

[@senorpepper3405]

1992. Ad&d 2nd edition. I was 11, it was great.

[@BigApeBooks]

This was a nice trip down memory lane for me. I started playing AD&D in 1981 while I was in high school. I played throughout college and post college up until D&D fourth edition. I now play Pathfinder, but I'll never forget those days playing with the guys, fussing over rules and going through home spun and published modules. Good times.

[@jps3b719]

Boy this brings back memories. I played AD&D starting in 1984 when I was 13 years old. I would go over to my best friend Andrew Robertson’s house and we would play for hours. Then we would go to the Prado River Reserve with our machetes and axes and we would go fight Orcs. Well, actually they were just tree saplings that we would chop down with our machetes. Every time I see the cover of the AD&D books it brings back such memories. We played for two years but it seems like it was a lot longer. I haven’t played in almost 40 years. Nothing can replace the 80’s. It was the best time to live in the United States.

[@speedymolasses3062]

unless you were a minority lmao

[@FranzBazar]

Agreed fellow 80’s kid!

[@FranzBazar]

@@speedymolasses3062 there’s a heck of a lot more racism across the UStoday than there was then. It’s much more systemic now than it was before. Everything is all race baiting now , we have much more division. The 80s were way better than the current sorry state of this once great country.

[@rikk319]

Most people's best time was as a teen, when their emotions were at their peak, so you have the most connection to those memories.

[@jps3b719]

@@speedymolasses3062 I am a minority. My mother grew up extremely poor. I didn’t let excuses get in the way of hard work and a job with the ability to make 400K a year plus 457 and lifetime medical. Don’t buy into the hype my friend

[@scottkrater2131]

I started playing AD&D in 79/80. My DMs first adventure was the Tomb of Horrors for my 1st level Dwarven fighter, Thorin Oakenshield, big Tolkien fan. I entered the tomb walked down the tunnel and promptly fell into a spike filled pit and got killed straight off. I didn't quit playing, but it turned out if your character lived past his killer DM phase, it went to Monty Hall. And I remember all the bs religious crap. If you're out there what's up Woody?

[@michaelmartin4552]

One thing often skipped over was the contradiction of "Dual Class" and Bards. This was one of many in the original AD&D rules. The book specifically said only humans could be dual class. Yet, half-elves could become Bards. But to be a Bard, you had to be dual class. A lot of us just accepted that both humans and half-elves could be dual class to get around that. Kind of like a similar one, where it stated "All dwarves have beards". All dwarves, even the females? Want to get a fight going in a D&D group in the early 1980s, say your female dwarf fighter has a beard.

[@Megan-ii6vj]

Honestly, I find Dwarves more fun if they all have beards! Especially in DnD, gives them something extra to stand out from the other smaller races.

[@H4x0r1]

Wow thank you for this Video. I played AD&D in Middle School circa 1982 and we were oblivious to all the major moves and shakes within the industry. As a old man now its is great to understand what happened and gives great meaning to my collection.

[@StarkMaximum]

Heck yes! More historical DnD content! One of the best notifications I could get!

[@lidarman2]

The good ole 'The keep on the borderlands" module started me off. What a recall in memory. I still have all my materials. But never played the newer versions of AD&D. In fact, our Friday sessions at Wargames West in Albuquerque, NM devolved into gossip and just playing video games instead of playing the DnD session in the early 80s.

[@Pazy160]

That was a very interesting video. The part that stood out to be was the idea that Gygax wrote rules with the expectation they may not be used at the GM's discretion. It makes a lot of the modules Ive read from the era make a lot more sense if the assumption is that the GM will constantly be modifying things as needed for that group in that session, those modules by default often seem to have too many details in one area that from this lens could be read as a list of options for the GM to use rather than a list of everything that has to happen. I also quite enjoy learning that little factoid about Gygax because its how I run all my games, a rule is only relevant if I decide its interesting as a GM or if the player has evoked it in some way. For example, the specific long jump rules would only come into my game if a player starts taking long jump feats to affect how those rules work otherwise I just make a guess at a DC and get them to roll.

[@yes_head]

Back when I played the most in the early 1980s, there were essentially two kinds of DMs -- those who saw the rules as cast in stone, and those who saw them "merely as guidelines". I always preferred the latter.

[@kevinsullivan3448]

@@yes_head There was another axiom, the typical "If the rules don't say you can, you can't." and the "If the rules don't say you can't, you can." I have always been in the 2nd category because only a Killer DM would make the game more restrictive just to make it more restrictive. the 3rd axiom was the "I'm the DM and it is my job to kill the characters" and "I';m the DM and it's my job to referee, so lets have fun." DMs.

[@thlessil5561]

@@kevinsullivan3448 I, funnily, hate the 2nd kind of GM, but also am him. Though, that's why when I am called upon to fill in to run, I almost always run PARANOIA or Twilight:2000. You can't say you didn't know what you were in for. At that point, not being utterly merciless to your players and turning every little thing into an uphill slog is doing it wrong.

[@pawned79]

(Born in 1979) My friends and I played AD&D in high school. We were in a Star Trek club and the club president ran a D&D game that he had been running for nearly twenty years. It was a huge pain in the ass to play as a lvl 1 character in a 50 character epic. He refused to power level us. A few years later in college, I met my best friend and we started playing 3rd edition in 2000. Though we’re on 5th edition now and have changed characters a number of times, we are STILL playing the exact same FR campaign setting that we started 22 years ago! My 11yo daughter has even started to play with us off an on. It is crazy how much staying power TTRPGs can have. Thanks for the video!

[@TheGamerZapocalypse]

Back in the Dark Ages of the 1970's when playing D&D we would allow a certain total number of character points you could use in any stats. It worked great. The more points you put into a stat the less you had for other stats, so it self-regulated itself fairly.

[@blockmasterscott]

Gary Gygax and JRR Tolkien, the two men that changed my life! Tomb of Horrors, Keep on the Borderlands, Vault of the Drow, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Best times of my youth. I still have the character sheet to my Paladin, Prince Matron!

[@BockwinkleB]

Same here, Paladin Adrian Argayle, Conquerer of the Pomarj!!!

[@kingbee1971]

Keep on the Borderlands was my first campaign. Ah, such pre-puberty caffeine-fueled memories.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

Is Prince Matron a prince or a matron? Or both, perhaps? 😲

[@kurtwpg]

@@FrancardNoir I felt that the description of "Force Field Protection" for Prismatic Sphere was very vague. I emailed Gygax over it and and clarified with a response.

[@thegameexplainer3861]

Tomb of Horrors was so cool yet so deadly! Lots of great ideas in there for me as a fledgling DM back in the day.

[@RonW4684]

System Shock was part of Supplement I: Greyhawk (OD&D 1975), as was Dual Classing (but it wasn't called that). When you take OD&D (1974), plus Greyhawk (1975), Blackmoor (Monks & Assassins) (1976), Eldritch Wizardry (Druids and combat Segments) (1976), and the Strategic Review magazine (Rangers, Illusionists, Bards, and the 5-point alignment (1975-76), you basically get proto-AD&D. It ran a lot like B/X with Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy rules.

[@DaChimpster]

Literally the most slept on D&D KZbin channel. Love this content

[@ROMBomb001]

*figuratively :)

[@DaChimpster]

@@ROMBomb001 nah, I brought a pillow and blanket and actually slept on it

[@nesmandan1037]

It should be noted that AD&D was born out of tournament play, not just transferring characters between campaigns. During tournaments, DM’s were handling the modules very differently and this was to get everyone on the same page. That’s why there are so many damn tables for every little thing.

[@nerzenjaeger]

That's a popular misconception. The reason there were tables for every little thing is because it was a proper attempt to codify the gameplay experience of early D&D campaigns in a way their first try (OD&D) couldn't. That's why, when you play OD&D and its supplements by the book, you're basically playing an early version of AD&D.

[@amphionification]

Those tournament modules were awful. Death at every corner.

[@Bluecho4]

To a certain extent. There was also the fact that the structure of D&D play outside tournaments was considerably more communal. Players in the dozens would get together in shared campaigns, tackling dungeons in a sandbox. Obviously this couldn't be accomplished all together, with everyone at the table at once. So players would get together in small groups, either with a shared DM or with whomever could DM at the time. (This would also explain the phenomenon of DMs having "Their Dungeon", something they would work on and refine over time. If it's a shared sandbox, each DM might be in charge of certain dungeons and how they develop.). With players moving around and even crossing between gaming tables, in a shared milieu, it's important that one's character be "portable". To be able to point to an objective set of rules and justify why they were allowed to have what they did. No DM wants to deal with a broken magic item or overpowered PC build a player brings before them, because their normal DM let them have it.

[@nesmandan1037]

@@Bluecho4 I’m just saying the primary reason or maybe the spark was tournament play, portability was the huge benefit. Even in AD&D we ran into issues with OP players either by a Santa DM, blind luck on rolls, or unintended consequences - I’ve been part of all 3. Santa DM because we were 9 years old and learning, unintended consequences as a bard of mine sucked in combat, I mean really bad that we created a boxing non-weapon proficiency so he could fight without a weapon because he dropped them so frequently. This was good as he got 4 attacks of 1-2 ho damage if he hit, until we randomly rolled a Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength, whoops. Finally the random rolls, our current party has a 5th level mage with a ridiculous 29 hp, but the 5thr level fighters have a 20 and 18, with the clerics at 12 and 19. On the other hand the treasure rolls have been sick with intelligent swords and armor in the +2 and +3 variety which they shouldn’t have until they get to levels 8-15. They’ve primarily been surviving by purchasing healing potions by the crate with the ridiculous treasure as trade.

[@andrewsnee]

Another, perhaps bigger, motive was to cut Arneson out of the royalties.

[@ericneal8651]

As and "old guy" who first played D&D Basic Edition with some of my middle school friends, I really enjoyed this video. We quickly transitioned to the newly published AD&D manuals - I can recall checking Sears and a local bookstore every week until the PHB and DMG were released! Now, I play and DM in two AD&D campaigns on Roll20 with a group of other old schoolers who found their people once again... there ain't nothing like fantasy RPG adventuring!!!

[@ROMBomb001]

I'd love to see a continuation of this "History of _____" series, especially of it covers all the versions of D&D up to modern day.

[@charliericker274]

kzbin.info/aero/PLlUk42GiU2gtSENFDN3Rm2oLJLkUsaJ_A Different channel, and chances are you know of this one but this is sort of what you are asking for so. . .

[@behindthespotlight7983]

There were two approaches to playing D&D in California in the mid-80’s. There were the Dragon Dice heads, who insisted on rolling and crafting new matrixes if a player wanted to order a pizza or go to the bathroom. And there were the storytellers. We were the avid readers of the Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Chronicle of Pyrdian & Dragon Quest books who used our skills to draw multiple page maps that took D&D to a new, vibrant level of choose your own adventure seasoned with the golden age of radio “theater of the mind.” You can infer from which category I hailed. For some of us once you DM’d there was no going back. Ironically my original team all met attending Fremont Christian School. As a 50 year old Christian I can now see the church’s concern back then but playing was so immersive and so much fun and frankly the church offered nothing that could even come close by comparison. Satan (as in Beelzebub, the real devil) hides in EVERYTHING. From Harry Potter to porn. Workaholism to religious zealotry. But the Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob is who gave me the hyper creativity that writing D&D modules as an adolescent nurtured. What other game can profess to churning out hundreds of dedicated 12 year old writers who hunched over pen & graph paper pages instead of out riding BMX bikes? We learned to paint our little pewter figurines while our friends were shooting windows with BB guns. I basically ignored fifth & sixth grade in favor of writing my own modules. One trip through the Keep on the Borderlands and within months I was buying hexagonal graph paper & creating new worlds outside the dungeon environment. My games were THE BEST in Fremont, CA circa 1984-86. But then my kid brother let some overzealous youth ministers talk him into burning all of my D&D stuff. Every map. Every module. Every game board. Even my pewter characters. Hundreds of dollars in mowed lawns and washed cars and hundreds of hours learning to write… poof💥🔥 Gone. Now, today I’m a dedicated Christian and he’s a dedication Portland leftist. Go figure. Aside from hundreds of quarters lost playing Dragons Lair at the local cineplex it was all harmless. What the church should’ve been worrying about was what happened two years later when D&D pizza parties turned into “parents are away/beer bashes and toking Mexican weed” parties. That’s when the devil really came to town.

[@kennethnegaard7599]

Amen brother. I too, am a Christian. Sorry to read your books and work burned up. Hope you're able to find a local or on-line group to play. There are many like-minded Christian role-playing groups out there. Worldwide. Blessings.

[@sneg__]

Pride is a sin in your religion by the way.

[@Ekkis25]

I started running campaigns in 1976 and i would occasionally have a "rules lawyer" that had read all the books and wanted to argue a point. I would tell them that I was playing for enjoyment, but that I was consistent in our game world, most would concede but I never had a player quit over my rule decisions. I ran games unitil 1990 when I was promoted at work and transferred out of state. I had doctors, pharmacists, musicians, opticians, a physicist, nurses, mechanics, and retail managers, in my groups over the years and we seldom argued rules.

[@spaztekwarrior]

I played AD&D back in the late 70s. My grade 9 science teacher was our dungeon master at school twice a week. Then we bought the books and played at home. I still have all my original AD&D books and about 10 modules. :)

[@seanbumstead1250]

I started playing AD&D from the beginning when I was 11 years old and have been playing it since. And to this day I still run a group of players using AD&D and use the world of greyhawk as our setting

[@FranzBazar]

I have great memories of AD&D back in the mid 80s. Only problem I had with it was I seemed to always have to be the dungeon master as I was pretty good at coming up with the scenarios and the dungeons and so on. Telling the story etc. I wanted to play! But anyway, I really wish I had all of those great D&D reference books like the one in the thumbnail for this video and more I had. Man, I would spend hours just looking through all those monsters , all their stats and reading their stories. I was enthralled.

[@shawncarter7188]

Right with ya. Those books were just so much fun to read..

[@ThriftyAV]

Excellent video that brought back so many nostalgic memories. I could comment on so much covered here, but I'll start with Dieties and Demigods. I first saw the original "Deities & Demigods" from a junior high friend who owned a ragtag copy of it. It was a HUGE disappointment that MY copy was missing two mythos. A decade later I found the 1st Edition at a used bookstore, but by the early 1990s, my hobby interests had shifted, and I never play tested the deities from the Cthulhu and Melniborean Mythos. To tell these apart, the first edition "Deities & Demigods" has the "wizard" TRS logo with sans-serif font on the lower right of the front cover. The reprint has the "face" logo with script font. Mythos are alphabetical and listed on Page 3. Also the original edition has 144 pages and the later release is 128 pages.

[@chaosspork]

Fascinating. I love learning about the older editions. It's so interesting to see how they're different, and why things were done that way.

[@LAJackson123]

Man, the RESEARCH that goes into these style of vids. I'm really diggin' yer channel, man! WELL DONE!

[@forgefather]

I and my brother have been playing for 45 years, we stopped at 2ed " great edition" because the newer stuff out is not true D&D, only in name, and we have a very huge library of all the books and supplements, and thousands of minis and terrain, what a truly great game it is. :)

[@unholywarrior9007]

I played the crap out if 2end edition . And many things were smarter on it like if you have multiple attacks you don't just use them all at once just because you won initive . We tried 4th and hated 5th is OK. But me and my friends prefer 3.5 the most. We like the feats they like the multi classing and everyone likes the skills

[@guyfrattallone6029]

I have no problem with the 3rd edition. ( I still pick up stuff when it's affordable and 2nd hand. The new 5th edition is also pretty good) but 4th is crap.

[@wwiiinplastic4712]

I started with the basic blue box but quickly transitioned to 2nd; wasn't a big fan of 3rd myself but to be honest haven't really looked at the last iterations. But as I already have almost everything that was published for 2nd I'm sticking to it. My oldest and her bf have been asking about the game lately...

[@faselessnobuddy]

1st & 2nd ed are the true d&d. the rest is just silly PC power-gaming product.. 3rd edition is TERRIBLE. 4TH & 5TH also complete trash. facts

[@guyfrattallone6029]

@@faselessnobuddy the only system that was a total failure ?(in my opinion) was 4th edition. That is the only edition not collectable to me. I never thought 5th would make it as far as its come, and thought, Everything's Pathfinder now....how can a new version of D&D compete? Man was I wrong.

[@Eric-1701]

This is an incredible video, chock full of great info! I started with the purple box and have been facinated by your two history videos. I am excited for more videos covering 3, 3.5 and 4!!!

[@unhaix707]

Its funny how the guys who got their start sending in articles to Dragon turned around and became the gatekeepers of RPG publishing and do everything in their power to make sure nobody else makes the same jump from fan to designer.

[@superdoov]

I think a vast majority of the baby boomer/hippie kids abandoned their values for mammon. Many of them.

[@kevinsullivan3448]

That's Just for D&D, It's quite easy to move from fan to writer in other games.

[@loke6664]

That is hardly something new. Disney made a killing turning public domain stories into movies but have since spent a lot of time and money to stop their own creations becoming public domain.

[@sandal_thong8631]

@@loke6664 Ouch for your post and OP.

[@RonW4684]

I started playing in the mid-late 70s, using the Holmes rules. When the AD&D PHB came out, we just added the new races, classes, ability bonuses, and spells to the Holmes combat and exploration rules. We played that way for 2-years, as we didn't have the DMG for a while. Even after we did get it, we never used the DMG rules, just the magic item tables and to-hit tables.

[@matthewbittenbender9191]

I love these videos! Keep them coming, and I love to see something specific on the evolution of D&D dice for the game if you can. They answer so many questions that I had about this game and company when I was a kid. It stimulated my mind so much on how these combat systems worked that I was inspired to create my own RPG centered around the transformers and... ahem... the Gobots. Of course I never had it published. But because of this I always wanted to meet Gary Gygax. Many years later, I was a instructor at a martial arts school and one of my soon-to-be black belts told me he was a massive D&D geek as a kid. He was now a Johns Hopkins genetics professor, but I told him I also was as well. He want to step further and said he still was and a few years prior told me that he drove up to New York where Gygax lived just to meet him and told me how gracious he was and invited him to his regularly scheduled Thursdays gaming nite. I've never been more jealous of another man in my life, lol! Wow Stallone and Schwarzenegger or movie heroes of mine back then, so were the likes of Gygax and Tolkien.

[@hydroac9387]

Great history! My dad bought me AD&D manuals in the late 1970s and by the early 1980s I had a core group of nerdy friends for epic D&D sessions. Found memories! All of my nerdy high school and college friends are now engineers, MDs, PhDs, and scientists, so indulging in D&D didn't hurt us very much. I still have my old AD&D manuals and modules are in my attic, and my nieces and nephews are interested and ask to play with their favorite uncle. More fun!

[@BrianJNelson]

I didn't know about the Buck Rogers connection, but that explains the video game they made that was like the Forgotten Realms games. I'd always wondered about that.

[@grapeenjoyer3658]

You make some of the best content this site has to offer, every upload feels like Christmas

[@junkbucket50]

Thank You for making this. I just watched your history of Original DnD and now the ADnD video. It's no wonder it took so long to make as there mist have been so much referencing and reading involved. Can't wait for the History of ADnD 2e when you're done making it!

[@shawncarter7188]

Love these videos... they have a way of taking me back in time.. great "go to sleep" videos after a watch or two. The music choices are great, throwing me right into the amazing role playing games of the day. Keep it up! ❤

[@JimRodgers]

Great work on the history and development of AD&D. I started playing in the late 70s and played well into my young adult years. I still have a mountain of AD&D books, adventure modules, etc. taking up space in my office. Every now and then I pull them out and remember all the countless hours spent gaming. Good times!

[@goodknight5783]

At 25:29 I realized I had bought everything shown, from the box set to the 2 Gods books. At the end yep every D&D/AD&D book sold. Even the World of Grey Hawk world map. A few years worth of Dragon mags... damn I'm a nerd!

[@ihatealllife]

Awesome, you're back! I always look forward to your videos. I had originally thought non-weapon proficiencies were introduced in the Wilderness Survival Guide, but it looks like you're right -- OA was published the year previous. Learned a new thing. 🙂 One thing I wish you'd had done was talk a little more about 2nd Edition. Not necessarily an exhausive dive into all the differences between 1E and 2E, but I would have enjoyed some discussion of that AD&D as well. Now please do a video on the history of psionics in D&D. 🙂

[@BockwinkleB]

Quickly becoming one of the best D&D channels. Your production and editing is excellent.

[@tolkienreadsmymind]

One of my favorite channels. Great work!

[@mskain4896]

Very excited for the next video...especially since that's my PoR speedrun featured in the monitor!

[@keithmccormack6248]

I was a rules lawyer: I read from cover to cover the 2nd Edition AD&D Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Compendium, plus some supplemental guides like the Book of Elves. Such a waste of time. nobody ever follows the rules.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

Thanks for making this. I love listening to videos about old school D&D and AD&D! 🤗

[@gravitatemortuus1080]

I miss the 1st rules. We were expected then to make our own adventures.

[@Malryth]

A great video! I still have my AD&D books from back in High School. I still love the system as Magic Users who stuck with it could cast some spells with damage dice that equalled their Level, thus rewarding the nerfed character class (hey who messes with a 14th level mage who can sling a 14D6 Fireball or Lightning Bolt?). Thank you for this informative video about AD&D's history.

[@TheAzial]

glad to see you uploading semi regularly again! Will continue to support

[@Arcboltkonrad13]

Wonderful coverage! Keep up the great work!

[@kennethnegaard7599]

Great video. I taught ADnD to my 11 year old. He was hooked immediately. I'm now 60 and he is 21 and we still play ADnD, as well as DnD 5th edition now and then.

[@kevinturner6621]

Ah.... My version I started playing in 1980 When i moved to London, introduced it to many people and now my son is an avid player of 5E in his uni, at home and online. What a fantastic game franchise to last so many years. Loved it.

[@tolentarpay5464]

I started with a basic D&D set found in a neighbor's house during a grown-ups xmas party, arnd 1980. V cool & became one of the AD&D kids in high school in early 80s. I had all the books (up to F Folio 2), but missed all those appendix rules you've mentioned. For myself, I was always most inspired by the cover art; apparently they weren't just random illustrations, they actually had refs to the content - was seriously engrossed, & marked all my game play... P.S. growing up in Perth, W Australia, we missed all that 'satanic-panic' stuff, thank God!

[@FlokiFire]

What a fantastic amount of information. Very informative, it's an incredible insight into the history and mysteries behind d&d. This video is a great starting point for anyone who's interested in the history of the game.

[@destonlee2838]

One of the most well stated summaries of the 'controversy ' i heard. Bravo.

[@TheDoughboy1917]

I posted this awhile back on an old video, But I would definitely love to see another video on the history of certain D&D classes. I think your videos on the Thief/Rogue and Monk are some of the best of your catalog! Fantastic video as always!

[@edemaomega]

hihi, DMItAll narrator here, you'll be getting your wish in due time ;)

[@Anaris10]

I miss the old Assassin class. My first character was a High Elf Assassin, became a GuildMaster and hasn't played since attaining 14th level. We threw out the Race/Level limits. Started in '81.

[@TheJormund]

Love your channel! Gives me all the feels from my younger days with my friends! How about a video on the Dark Sun campaign setting? Keep up the great work!

[@PsyrenXY]

This is an amazing history lesson and your channel is a treasure trove!!

[@fuchnorris6277]

got chills when i saw that Pool Of Radiance clip, that was the first time i actually played D&D(apple II+). Before that i just bought and read the game books, had no one to play with but it was interesting as hell. Same with Battletech, had the game books but no one to play with until The Cresent Hawks Inception came out for Apple II+ but since then Ive accumulated around 125 DragonLance novels with some Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk and some Plainscape thrown in too. thank you for this

[@savethefantasticfour292]

Love it, I'm going back to look at the first part next. I'm surprised you did not mention Swords and Wizardry at the end. It is my favorite of the retro clones. Perhaps because it is more basic D&D or a combination of the two? Nice Job with the video.

[@ebranden]

I love your videos. I'm looking forward to watching more of your D&D history videos in the future!

[@user-bb5kk5lt6u]

I really like the style and quality of your videos. I will definitely recommend your channel to my friends.

[@Seth9809]

So glad you are back to doing this type of video again.

[@DanteSpinotti1]

Gary Gygax was DM for my second round at Dragon Con in Atlanta early 90's ish. Thanks for your channel and content.

[@Fantasyscaping]

Took me a while to find a good video of this history and the story behind it all. I'm glad it exists. Thank you sir!

[@mverna3628]

Back in ‘82 at Boy Scout summer camp here in PA the various troops got players together for a huge D&D campaign. We had one DM named K Mabin. He was amazing. He ran a three day campaign with 20+ players and used NO rulebook whatsoever. It was amazing and holds some of my fondest memories i gaming.

[@bonbondurjdr6553]

Great video as always! Can't wait for the next one! Take care of yourself!

[@springheeledjackofthegurdi2117]

Please do a full video on Agienst the giants, the first adventure path/campaign series

[@rickstar171]

Always uploading a video when I need one the most

[@MA-ho5hd]

I only know the AD&D 1st rule set, and don't desire to learn any others. It's where my cherished memories of D&D live. Those 1st edition hardcovers were magic as a kid. Thank you for this channel. I just discovered it last week. Hope you continue with doing some 1st edition content.

[@epochinfinitysedge5008]

Those were the days......

[@glenncox9128]

An excellent and in depth summary. In fact, perhaps the best I’ve ever seen.

[@jakecarlstad6192]

Awesome! Glad you're still making videos!

[@rogermwilcox]

The 1st Edition DMG didn't just *clarify* rules in the 1st Edition PHB, it outright *replaced* some of them. For example, the rules for how many spells a 1st level magic-user character has in his/her spellbooks. The PHB gives a % chance to know each 1st level magic-user spell in the master list, and gives a max number of allowed spells, based on the magic-user's intelligence. The DMG, on the other hand, says that a 1st level magic-user always has exactly 4 spells in his/her spellbooks, one of which must be "read magic", and the other 3 of which are basically "one from column A, one from column B, and one from column C" -- and any further spells must be acquired by finding scrolls or spellbooks and copying them there with a "write" spell.

[@guyfrattallone6029]

As a lazy dm, and one that felt that wizards were weak at the beginning of their careers, I'd let my wizard players allways get Read Magic, Detect Magic, and Magic Missile for free at start. Then let them pick 2d4 others. Just try not to get wrapped up in useless timekilling rules and keep that game flowing!

[@loszhor]

Very interesting! And thanks for the game recommendations at the end!

[@AgataCris_]

"But the departure of Gary Gygax spiritually marks the end of an era." Can't agree more. Never truly get into the newer D&D editions, I played all for like 1/2 years but the burnout is inevitable. The "old-school" feeling, the identity, the "soul" just isn't there and even with thousands of homebrew material, those editions just can't emulate the Gygax D&D. Even if now D&D it's more popular than ever I think it's a byproduct from the exposure, the internet and movies/series, not because the "D&D". More people want to play cuz they see Critical Role or other RPG shows or watch Stranger Things and search about the "game the characters are playing" but they most of them don't like the game for what it is but like the activity... Back then I loved AD&D and AD&D 2e and still love today. Was my first system, played for almost 10 years with the same group and we grow together as friends. When the time comes and we grow up "too much" the adult life kicked in and we lose contact. I started DMing for groups and never got the same feeling if we play 3e or 4e. 5e started strong, we had hope, but then evil races from Forgotten Realms start to not be evil, all the material is just for the Sword Coast, WotC literally forgot the rest of Toril, and most of the new players think they are chosen heroes saving the world. Nothing wrong with playing like this but this just makes things boring and easy, not memorable... Sorry for the rant, love the channel btw.

[@scottdoesntmatter4409]

Check out Pathfinder 1e sometime. It's very well done.

[@powerist209]

Well, Forgotten Realms evil races not being evil is pretty original. I mean Eilistraee and Peaceful Orc being original…for some reason; WoTC seems to dislike Eilistraee and mostly had to do with RA Salvatore, who said that he dislike her. Even not evil Drows seem to ignore Eilistraee.

[@SmuggyOcelot]

But the activity is the game? I think D&D becoming more widely known is a good thing because it becomes open to a lot of players who may have seen it as a weird niche

[@tensazangetsu8189]

Incredible vídeo! Here waiting for the history of aDnD 2E :D

[@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec]

💕 I simply love learning more about old School D&D & other ttrpg's.

[@AuntieHauntieGames]

It's still weird to me that people consider 'illusionist' a class in AD&D when it was just one example of the Wizard Specialist, which was the standard wizard next to the generalist Mage.

[@tinear4]

This brought back memories! The Fiend Folio had some especially great content. By ‘83 we had moved on to Top Secret and Marvel, though, and I have no idea what happened to my original AD&D hardcovers.

[@trynnallen]

A classmate of mines mother bought the Top Secret and Indiana Jones RPGs for him to play, because she didn't want him playing D&D. Him being the whopping age of 7, it fell to me; at her insistence and as his babysitter (aged 12), to come up with adventures for him. Did anyone ever come up with a successful adventure for Indy? Top Secret I sorta managed. But I asked if we could do Star Frontiers instead and was able to come up with something. She tried to convince me that Buck Rodgers would be a better choice, but I pointed out that everything that we could do in Buck we could do in Star Frontiers better. My brother (my RPG guinea pig) remembers me trying to come up with a game for Indy, that didn't play like an AD&D adventure with no monsters, just humans, and said that I was beating myself up over it. I honestly don't remember much about it beyond me threating the aether to do something with the system as it was so broken as to be unplayable.

[@amphionification]

I love these videos. I grew up with AD&D and this creates some major nostalgia for me.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

When I played AD&D and the DM told us we needed to find trainers to level up, we went on a long, dangerous and almost impossible quest which took a year’s worth of play sessions, to find a dimensional portal to the real planet Earth in modern times, so we could buy trainers at a shoe store. Only then did we discover that the DM meant the other definition of the word “trainers”.

[@mxplixic]

Ah, you travelled to the far-off Kingdom of Angle-land. 😁

[@SimonAshworthWood]

@@mxplixic more like Oz-Traylya

[@jerryrose2083]

Lol! Served you right for thinking in English instead of American!

[@SimonAshworthWood]

@@jerryrose2083 😲 “Trainers” doesn’t refer to shoes in the USA?

[@skarra3658]

@@SimonAshworthWood No, those type of shoes are called "tennis shoes" or "sneakers" in the US.

[@N0B0DY_SP3C14L]

AD&D, in my opinion, was the best version. You pointed out why at roughly 33:00. Everything after Monster Manual 2 kind of started turning the game less into a game-flow, and more into a bunch of lawyers arguing over precedent. Oriental Adventures, Unearthed Arcana, Manual of the Planes, Spelljammer, those all kind of lost a magic that Gary had imbued the others with. THACO sucked, The original modules, like the Giants series, Q1, the Ravenloft series, , and of course, the S series (arguably my favorite) were all inspiration for home brews. I love the fact that with the core three AD&D books ( though I do love me some deities and some fiends), a pad of graph paper, pencil and dice, you never really needed to buy anything else, just exercise a bit of creativity, So much fun!

[@donskiver]

I'm really digging this content. I'm hoping you cover all editions.

[@savagelee6973]

I just paid $110. For a players handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide and a set of dice. I think I paid less than $30 back in the early 80's. Wow.

[@senorpepper3405]

I started in the early 90s. That would of been around 50 bucks or so. I still got some of those old books.

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

Nice history lesson I had a trip down memory lane with the books and things you showed in the video. 1AD&D was indeed deadly. I still like playing it at conventions.

[@wesleyrussell8386]

Always love your videos when they come out! I really like the interstitial music when the chapters start and at the end, but I don't think I saw it in the description. Can you tell me what the song or songs are called?

[@Cowpiepizza4]

Man, I absolutely love the music you use for these videos, do you have a playlist or something that you keep them organised in?

[@TimBrennan01]

Yay! I rewatch your old videos all the time.

[@jonathonfreeman9233]

glad to see you back! great work here as always.

[@daveoverton8860]

My dad thought D&D was a cult recruiting system and forbid me to play it. I had to hide my books or give them to my friends I played with til dad came to reason. 17:10

[@DrPluton]

I started with AD&D when I was five (1st edition module Palace of the Silver Princess) as a human cleric. I credit the way the original PHB was written with a lot of my early vocabulary development.

[@marktownsend2198]

Always excited to see you upload.