The History of D&D, Part I: OD&D 1974

[@ScrapperTBP]

"You are going to sit around being short and pissed off". Wow this game has such realism

[@thevoid4729]

I feel like naming all of the fighters Duncan is a ghola joke and I really appreciate that. A Duncan Idaho for every generation of D&D!

[@Joemantler]

You're not screwed by buying a helmet. Your helmet is insurance so the DM cant say "you don't have a helmet? take 1d6 damage as all that stuff falls on your head"

[@naarmy]

dwarf: you can't just see a sloping passage, you have to feel it in your ancestry, its a deep uneasy feeling of deceit. human: haha marble goes brrrrr.

[@BoredMarcus]

At least now I know why dwarves are always grumpy.

[@jlirving]

😅 brilliant

[@azmendozafamily]

As an old school Dwarf player, my DM would make sure that his adventures included sloping corridors. it was badass when I was told that the floor seemed to be sloping slowly but surely. It was never a "haha, got you!" feeling to it. It was an opportunity to use your character.

[@laeviga-sunstrider]

That's awesome for the DM to do that. I recently got into the game and as the DM I had to quickly learn and come up with ways to apply one of my player's Criminal Background into the story. That said, the idea of a dwarf one noticing sloping ground is pretty funny, as if a human with 15 Intelligence can't understand level ground or gravity. Lol

[@yotelex]

Except when there are no dwarves in the party. Then the DM says "Haha, I got you". That was the point, the rules are full of "haha, I got you" moments. If there are Dwarves in the party, then the GM says "Haha, I got you. Now you Dwarves are just an inferior version of the Fighting-Man" and doesn't bother with sloping floors.

[@Tigerman1211]

Well, looks like there's a new video in this series so I might as well start from the beginning lol

[@williamwalton9154]

Same here

[@CountsDigGraves]

I briefly entertained the idea of watching them in reverse order, having discovered the series at the latest one.

[@mszymcza]

It's pretty hilarious but true. Completionist OCD.

[@caseycoker1051]

Yeah I'm the same way. I had watched the first two of these but I figured I'd start over since I haven't watched all the ones in between.

[@naheemquattlebaum2267]

I guess we're all here for the same thing lol

[@sevenseven9496]

When you ordered up the stats: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, Charisma, it's interesting to me, because arguably, Fighters most/mostly want high Strength and high Constitution (Stat 1, and 4), Wizards mostly want high Intelligence and Dexterity (Stat 2, and 5), and Clerics (if you're playing them like a "social medieval priest" with a flock, who would have interacted with the community much more closely than a wizard, or some distant baron in his keep), would most desire high Wisdom and high Charisma (Stat 3, and 6) So, when they put the stats in that order, it could (possibly) be that they were grouping the stats in blocks of primary stats, and blocks of secondary stats, for each of the three classes, so that when you rolled your character up, you knew right away what your class was with the first three rolls, and could deal with the "secondary stats" separately, after you knew what your character was.

[@ymmijx6061]

depends on your build(specially depending on edition). high str wizard with a pile of buff spells is always fun.

[@BaronCemetery]

My understanding is that they were ordered that way because it was the order in which the classes were invented: Fighting Men and Magic Users were in the game from the start but then a character got turned into a vampire and a guy in Dave Arneson's game was like "can I play a Van Helsing type guy to get rid of him?" and thus the Cleric was born. The other stats are then in the order of "well we need to know how often they can be hit, how easy it is to hit them, and then we need to know how good the morale of their men is once they're a baron."

[@BarelyGoodTV]

Steel mirrors are super useful to look around corners, avoid being turned to stone, reflecting light, etc

[@JimWee93]

This remains a hidden Gem on KZbin I like to re-visit every now and then to place this amazing game of ours in a historical context.

[@knottheory79220]

37:16 The mirror is for peeking around a corner in the dungeon (without having to stick your neck out around the corner).

[@DarkAvatar1313]

or signaling with reflected light.

[@Bluecho4]

It's also potentially useful when Medusas are about.

[@kereminde]

@@Bluecho4 This is what I remember them being for, medusas and basilisks.

[@LFielding07]

Sad to see this series didn’t get more love from the community... I really enjoy it

[@kereminde]

I hadn't heard it was happening... but I'll sit through this and ignore the slight PTSD of dealing with chargen from the older editions. :)

[@chameleondream]

If you were wondering about why the cleric is the Cleric and not the Battle-Priest (which has a sweet hyphen in the center), I suspect it's because of cleromancy which is divination of the future by the rolling of dice. Just a hunch. Interesting point about the fighting man's destiny is to be a land-owner and eventually commander of a small army. Maybe that's what's missing from the fighter class which makes it seem so weak at higher levels. Everyone talks of the magic-user being overpowered at higher levels. What about the guy with an army at his disposal? Good vid!

[@chameleondream]

+Josh James I really don't recall. I think Charisma effects the number of hirelings one can have in both games. I will say that this approach now makes AD&D's extensive treatment of morale make more sense. You really have to wonder about their end game. We tend to see D&D and its offspring as being whole packages, but it could be that Gygax and friends had never meant to abandon wargaming and instead create a system which traced characters from their humble beginnings to their ends as the leaders of massive armies. It could be that D&D was designed as a prequel to a massive fantasy wargaming system which never came to fruition because players were far more interested in the lives of their characters than leading armies.

[@VorpalDerringer]

Yes, that is the implication. You adventure, you get some land, maybe you adventure some more, but you have a little fiefdom and can retire as a lord. Same for a cleric, who can start a fiefdom earlier. In the 1e DMG there's all kinds of tables for followers and the kinds of soldiers you get and building a castle and mining and sieges and on and on.

[@purplexenno]

That is why they did the "colored" rule books. As you level your adventures change. You go from dungeon delving to politics involving kingdoms.

[@wanderinghistorian]

20:30 Player. "I have a ball one of the children in Hommlet gave me. I'm going to drop it and see if it rolls down the hall." DM. "Is it a MARBLE?" Player. "Um...no but it is round." DM. "HAHA NO, it doesn't roll. Hehe."

[@piccolomaniac]

I like the level titles! My D&D experiences began with Pathfinder, but I remember playing this video game as a kid in the mid-90s that I now realize was heavily based on 2nd edition D&D (so much so that if I remember correctly, TSR sued them -- some time in the aughts, they came out with a new version of the game that had a lot of names changed…also, there was THAC0). Anyway, it was called "Realmz". And every level of every class had a title. That was definitely where I learned the words "theurge" and "thaumaturge" as a 7-year-old! Also, now I see where the five separate saving throws in the game "Beyond the Wall" come from -- I was reading that recently and five saving throws sounded like a staggeringly high number.

[@chrisnagy377]

clerics in my campaign are now officially called god-botherers

[@daemeonation3018]

I'm officially going to start calling everyone who believes in god a god-botherer. :D

[@wanderinghistorian]

"I am a fighting-man, I fight other men." "I am a magic-user, I use magic!" "I am a god-botherer, I annoy my deity until he gives me magics. As I learn I become much better at annoying him until the point I am SO annoying that he will literally do miracles for me just to get me to leave him alone. How may I assist?"

[@wonderwoman9799]

"He has to use his head." That's the joy of this game!

[@brianeason7554]

Well done! I am an old player (started in 1977) and I appreciate your attention to detail.

[@lynnkain]

First heard about it in 1977. Started in 1979.

[@ManFromTheFizz]

Heya Brian do you know if you could tell us some all time classics stories of yours?

[@gotgeekvibes8344]

Well done, enjoyed this immensely! Looking forward to watching the remaining videos in this series! Dude, you are bringing back like, awesome, old memories! I'm 50, started playing when I was 16.... WOOT! Played through all the versions....

[@trebormills]

As a fan of ODnD having started with 1981 Basic/Expert DndD then ADnD 1st Edition I approve of this video. I never used Minis when playing DnD, if pushed Id use some dice for positioning, players had to map the dungeon for them self. I like Fighting Man, Magic User and Battle Priest for a matched series of names. B1/B2/A1-4/G1-3/D1, the S series are all classic modules

[@RunKnitCoffee]

Took a group of 3.5/Pathfinder players through T1-T4 in a campaign a few years ago. They were completely perplexed by room 109. We also had 2 dwarves in the party so they made the roll and noticed the slope. I think we wondered why there was a big sloping passage in the dungeon. I feel like a lightbulb just popped up over my head.

[@StarwalkerStudios]

This is a great video. Thanks for doing it. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the series.

[@nicholashurst780]

You know the party accidentally going to level two of the temple of elemental evil doesn't sound fun but it does sound like one of those moments you often describe and running the game where something comes up that makes the players who took a certain thing feel smart and special

[@pkmn1260]

-I think the reasoning for stuff like the "evidently important" part of descriptions is because it is common sense stuff that all characters in that world would know/be able to guess with ease, even if the players would not. also, something to point out, the dwarves also get the ability to notice new things in old structures, so if something was fixed, or a cave was carved by mortal means instead of natural, the dwarf would notice that, but others would not. -it is really interesting to me, but honestly, a lot of this sounds more like a description of a Diablo-easque dungeon crawl, with each person having their own "diablo dungeon" then what most people assume today as D&D.

[@salvagebar]

There was definitely some Gygaxian hazing going on in the first groups back in the 70s, that got encoded into the rules and remains in the DNA of all the D&D works right down to the present.

[@Jaseoffire]

While I suppose Good ol' Gary was still quite a sadist, I feel like some of the odity might be from the game in which this is an expansion of. In a sense, this is a homebrew chainmail miniatures homebrew. That makes pathfinder a homebrew of a 3e version of another homebrew. LOL!!! Kind of fun to think about.

[@derrickbonsell]

"Dwarves can only be fighters" And thus a fantasy meme was born.

[@Tzirrit]

Short and pissed off

[@StarlightDragon]

I would love to see this continued. You became so busy with all these new awesome projects, but it would be cool to see this series completed at some point.

[@seabass_5433]

39:25 I find it funny you say "he's not a superhero with a cape" because I'm pretty sure that picture underneath the XP chart is traced Jack Kirby art of Captain America

[@benjaminscherrey2479]

Outstanding video. Brings back old memories. I came in right when AD&D was introduced but was aware of and read these books.

[@MarquisangelodeSade]

Wow, that takes me way back. Thank you for making this. Wish I still had my books from Od&d and 1E, 2E.

[@pmcgee003]

"Short and pissed off" is perfect for a dwarf. :p

[@davidb4020]

A lot of the problem with understanding the rules come from wargaming. If you have wargaming roots you understand a lot of those terms at that time. 1) Magic-User were indeed from Chainmail. It is because there was multiple type of Magic-User (such as Sorcerer, Wizard, etc.). Those are also level-title from the Magic-User in Men & Magic. 2) On top of what is mentionned in the video, Gygax said multiple time the basic is human because it creates a logical foothold in an otherwise illogical fictional world. That's why he wanted more humans and made the restriction with regards to that. You can even see it when you read old Referees that decided to get rid of those special restriction for non-humans and then complained rightfully "Why is there no human in my campaign?" It's easy to see: people will always take the best option. Dwarves, elves and hobbits are not bad options per se, but they have restrictions. 3) There is more chance of generating a random dungeon with slope than using a real module, that's perfectly true. 4) Alignment comes from the wargaming aspect of Chainmail also and it's important to note it: Chainmail fantasy supplement is made to fight the battle of the five armies. Not explicitely, but implicitely: just check the monsters included and the examples given. First edition had Balrogs and all. Therefore, it's about Law vs Chaos. In wargaming there are only two sides, which is why in D&D there is only two "real" sides: the fluff might come from Moorcock, but it's clearly just a matter of wargaming at its core. 5) You say it's weird, but you should have said "weird for modern gamers" lol, since you know it's about prime requisite. 6) Charisma matters a lot, especially by the rules: reaction and loyalty are two crucial factors with both hirelings and monsters encounters, which are very important at lower level. It influences the number of retainers you can have. It's important to note that at this point, it was not entirely clear if it's about the maximum number of hirelings as in men-at-arms, or hirelings as in "followers NPC with classes": it specifies "of unusual nature". 7) You didn't write your Hit Dice which, coming from Chainmail, are actually very important as they define your attack potential. Not important for the Alternative Combat System anyway ! 8) Weapons differ in Chainmail, but not in the ACS. 9) Where did you hear that Saving Throw was made by the DM ? I know you played with old players, but the assumption was always that you made it yourself, because in Chainmail that's how it worked out (for the equivalent). Also it says "Failure to make the total indicated above ... /you/ are turned to stone", impliying it's you the player. 10) Would be fun to see you run a game of OD&D! I love that you mention it's about using your head to get advantage on the monsters AND environment.

[@bunnarnor]

Thanks alot for this video! Looking into getting together a group of friends and try out D&D, so interesting to see how it has evolved from the early start! Looking forward to more videos!

[@guyfawkes8873]

Having recently run a ‘draw your own map’ dungeon for my players I highly recommend it. It really adds to a sense of exploration.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

"NO. It must be 6." :D

[@merlintym1928]

It was 6 so you could randomly stock your dungeon by rolling D6's, dave arneson wrote about it in his notes for the "first fantasy campaign". WHY they never mentioned that in the rules, before God and everybody I could not tell you 😂

[@Wendelvendel]

Matt you are the keeper of the flame. I would really like if you continued this series. I know you are busy and I have asked this elsewhere but I have really enjoyed your musings on the history of the game. Passing on the culture and where its idiosyncrasies as game come from and the ideas, debates and contours of the modern community come from. Would happily watch you finish this series and if you finished it I am sure I would love to see you discuss the development of the magic-user and Cleric at least as far as 3.5. Really happy about how well it has gone for you and you truly are a river to your people!

[@johannesdolch]

8:50 (lower left corner): Windows has detected that your performance is slow. Please update to a newer edition of Dungeons and Dragons.

[@curatinghumanism]

I’ll never forget when my cousin from Maryland came to town for the holidays one winter when I was in middle school. He spent most of his time with us drawing maps for his dungeons and grid paper and explaining where traps and monsters would be. I was enamored. By the time I was in middle school I was one of a few kids in our neighborhood that would DM in 3rd edition D&D. What marvelous memories.

[@bonielsen653]

I have to say that the first thing that came to my mind when the dwarf, being able to note slanting floors, came up was the classic seesaw floor traps and the like. But maybe that's just me.

[@nickkaranikas4324]

Watched almost all of your series on getting started as a DM, I really enjoyed it but finding this series is what convinced me to subscribe. Great content.

[@DMInverse]

Oh! The helmet is to prevent instant death when green slime falls on your head in the dungeon!

[@jacktough]

This historical perspective really informs/enhances my 5th Edition world in ways I would never have predicted. Thank you for all you do for this community...

[@AndyAction]

This is both fascinating and fun - thanks for creating & posting! -=A

[@demohidu5946]

I was lead here from your 12 min short video. It sounds like Gary originally went down the mind set of what we now call rogue-lites. Something about the way you describe him makes me think he would have really liked some of the old Wizardry video games.

[@AreaCode000]

I played a game of OD&D at Gary Gygax's house 2 years ago during Gary Con. It was awesome.

[@2003davidthegnome]

I enjoyed your reaction to the helmets effect on your character

[@edlaprade]

Not sure if it was in the original rules, or Chainmail, but later at least, if you didn't wear a helmet like 10% of hits against your character would be against their unarmored head.

[@Madhattersinjeans]

Man this rule set appears to be so bare bones and basic. I'm in awe of it honestly. It's so simple that it even misses out pieces of equipment, probably by mistake. There's a certain elegance in simplicity though. It's easier for people to understand and when you're trying to market a new game to people who have likely never even played a tabletop game before simplicity is very important. Either that or they just forgot to include little details like swords should deal more damage than handaxes or something lol.

[@PeterSFam]

Gygaxian language is a development of Vancian English from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series

[@ManFromTheFizz]

THAT NAME ALONE sounds dope as hell. Any other hidden gems or magnificent book/comic book series you could recommend?

[@jeremysmatana2592]

Per Dave Arneson's obit in The Guardian: "In 1969, while refereeing a Romans v Gauls contest, Dave allowed a player who had painted up a Gaul shaman to call upon the gods to destroy a Roman elephant. As the Roman player laughed, Dave described a lightning bolt destroying the elephant." So maybe the first "magic users" were druids.

[@4204799]

Jeremy Smatana lmaoo

[@raymondwhatley9954]

I just got done reading through the Keep on the Borderlands and it also has some sloping passages. There's just a short little mention of it in the intro to the Caves of Chaos and the map indicates a couple of them.

[@adamli9767]

This is like a very well established history lecture for D&D. thank you!

[@danielrowan4716]

I am running Dwellers of the Forbidden City (I2) with some home brew additions in which the Dwarven Fighters abilities to sense direction, depth, and slope under ground actually came into play and wielded useful knowledge

[@SteveBonario]

Great job Matt! One of the original premises is that the DM's dungeon is his or her "challenge" to the players to "solve" or "survive". Though Gygax encouraged DMs to be fair and balanced when running the game, he doesn't expect the DM to be fair when designing the dungeon. So you fill your dungeon with one-shot killing traps because it''s up to the players to think of ways to detect the trap (and disarm it) rather than stumble into it. Thus some DMs earned a reputation as having a "killer" dungeon or being "killer" DMs, while some DMs had "Monty Hall" (dungeons that gave away great rewards for little to no risk to the player). This is "dungeon crawling" in its original sense. No one cared about the world outside the dungeon. In modern video gaming terms, some early D&D games were more like the "Dark Souls" video games -- you had to figure out a lot of stuff on your own and the environment and monsters usually unforgiving. And you usually knew nothing about the monsters you were fighting -- you had to learn through trial and painful experience what worked against monsters. This kind of approach to RP gaming was all we had -- there were few alternatives (Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Traveller, RuneQuest, Tunnels & Trolls) and all were combat and exploration oriented rather than story-oriented. Having been a DM since 1979, I admit I much prefer the current 5e approach -- much more flexible and consistent rules (and less math heavy) than almost all previous editions. That said, those early days of D&D in the 1970s were cool because we really had no templates or history of previous RPGs to draw upon. We were making it up as we went.

[@joshkaid]

Steve Bonario It's so nice to hear an old school guy praise 5th Edition.

[@SteveBonario]

Josh Kaid I am a total fan of 5e! It's what I run. The OGL concept was (is) also a huge sea change in the relationship between rules publishers and the player base. Probably the single best thing that ever happened to tabletop RPGs. I love that it was brought back with 5e. As a gaming community, we have an embarassment of richness when it comes to creative materials. And even with all the new stuff, I love repurposing material from editions 1/2/3/3.5/4 for use in 5e.

[@craigcoletta9380]

I've really enjoyed this series. I started playing at the age of 10 in 1979 (Holmes Basic was my introduction) and you're bringing back a lot of memories as you roll these out. One connection that comes from my own experience that I didn't hear you make explicitly in this video (though I think you imply it): A lot of the gaps in information in the ODD books might not be gaps at all but are rather assumptions of a common knowledge base re: fantasy fiction and wargaming. (Not all, certainly -- many were just ommissions b/c GG et al were creating something new and for which there was no established process) You suggest this in re: Law/Chaos/Neutrality by bringing up Moorcock -- I think a lot of the "gaps and omissions" are just things that GG assumed someone would know in pretty deep detail from a life of reading fantasy novels and would need only a "We're including this Moorcock thing ... oh and later we work in Vance's magic too, you'll recognize it" in order to know how to use those kinds of rules. Same with dwarves and the "full use of the +3 war hammer" -- that seems like a wargamer's "well, of course only certain units can use certain tools...if there's an abandoned tank on the field, I can't use it if the unit I move to seize it is an infantry unit, I need to move an armor unit that knows how to drive a tank." Not a critique, I love what you're doing, just an observation to contribute to a fascinating history project.

[@purplexenno]

i've played all those modules, not only that but i still play D&D rules (not AD&D, nor the new D&D) and have mucho fun. It's great the amount of freedom i have over the newer editions.

[@woodwwad]

Totally agree with you about the term species not race. I used that nomenclature for Within the Ring of Fire. The game idea of these things are no longer able to be made was always really interesting. I agree with you about allowing the players to play what they want and make it the exception (as long as it makes sense).

[@puckerings]

If Gygax was so focused on swords & sorcery as opposed to high fantasy, why was he so quick to import ents, er, I mean treants and hobbits, oh, um halflings into his game? These appear in the 1974 edition of the game.

[@nowthenzen]

the accepted explanation for that was 'marketing' he wanted to leverage interest in LOTR.

[@purplexenno]

actually it goes back to TSR. When he got investors (and no i won't name the bastards, they royally fucked gary and D&D) they began demanding changes, AD&D was one of those another was more "High fantasy" stuff to make the game more appealing.

[@puckerings]

I think you're confused about the timeline, Gygax didn't get fucked over until later.

[@purplexenno]

It started early in TSR's history with him being out voted on things he thought he should do. It was the two vs him and it left him with little choice.

[@edlaprade]

Actually, they were called Ents and Hobbits at first. But Tolkien's lawyers put a quick stop to that.

[@armorclasshero2103]

The reason he didn't make PCs the exception is because the game was meant to be played by up to 50 people in a gaming club like a proto-mmo.

[@harrylane4]

What a chunky keyboard sound! I love it!

[@yoshienverde]

I feel that most of the things in ODnD that would baffle a regular TTRPG player are rooted in the fact this game was pretty much a skirmish-level expansion for a wargame. If you shift your brain from TTRPG to TTWG mode, most of the things Matthew complains (or scratches his head) about make A LOT of sense. A deep one is the fact that the dynamics of the game are complete opposites: You're expecting player agency to be their ability to interact with the world, while here it would just be being able to select which actions to take each turn. The sloping ground thing, for example (and the description blurb for each room too), is because players wouldn't ask you (the referee) if the ground was sloping, they wouldn't be able to even perceive that, unless one of the PCs was a dwarf, in which case they would KNOW it at once. This is similar to Passive Perception, where the referee is the one to use your stats to decide what happens

[@antieverything1]

The idea that ODnD isn't focused on Good vs Evil is belied by all the spell and monster descriptions that explicitly refer to evil, often in mechanically significant ways: detect evil, et al; "Evil Clerics", etc. Gygax would clarify the existence of a difference (in a single clause in passing) between a "chaotic" and an "evil" creature in Greyhawk (1975) but Gods, Demigods & Heroes (1976) repeatedly mentions "evil alignments". Later versions of Basic DnD (other than Holmes 1977 which had 5 alignments) would clarify that a Chaotic character's player needed to clarify (in secret) whether the character was "evil" chaotic or "happy-go-lucky" chaotic.

[@williamwalton9154]

Here from the future 11/23/20. Just finished the 3rd edition vid and happy to go back and catch the beginning.

[@mstarot2793]

I want to say my friend Gary Spiegel had us roll up characters one night using this set. We were all used to AD&D 1st edition, so it was strange and fun. He was a great DM.

[@4204799]

i loved these videos please bring them back

[@markh3684]

LOL you say Charisma like I do from the David Lee Roth video back in the day "He has KA raz ma!"

[@crapphone7744]

I remember playing OD&D in 1975. Miniatures? Why do I need those? Totally theatre of the mind back then.

[@felipeuseche332]

OMG. Just found this. I do not know how I didn't saw it earlier. I just finished my job's contract and have nothing to do and all of my players are back with their families so I guess is binge time.

[@drd051178]

I just had to say... I added the total of all of the stats and divided by 6, and got exactly 10.5. So as far as I can tell, Duncan the Fighter is precisely average.

[@paulfelix5849]

Watched this some time ago. Rewatching as a refresher. I think Mat missed a point early in the creation process which affects a great deal in what follows: the DM rolls the dice for the character because the player would not be privy to that info. The DM kept the character sheet as secret as he does the dungeon map. The player would have info on their money and what they've bought with it (weapons, armor, etc.) but the stats specifics were secret. Technically the players didn't even need dice because the DM was supposed to roll everything. He would simply narrate the outcome of the roll. The players merely 'roleplayed'. It was a vastly different atmosphere from later forms of the game. Hope that helps.

[@suejak1]

Excellent video.

[@urdinaran]

@ 3:13 you said "Kriegsspiel" was a miniature company; I believe that is incorrect, I don't recall any such company. I do recall it being a wargame : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel . Otherwise, Great Video!!! In fact, Kriegspiel is covered at great length in "Playing at the World" (great book).

[@OrdinaryTrevor]

Are the sloping hallways the reason why a bag of ball bearings shows up in equipment lists?

[@mcolville]

Yep! Also you throw them down and enemies slip and fall on them as they chase you while you retreat post haste.

[@OrdinaryTrevor]

Wow, thanks for replying to my comment on a 6 year old video! It's fun to put the pieces together and figure out "Why was this in the game?" I had always pictured the ball bearings used similarly to caltrops, such as in slapstick '80s movie scenes when the hero smashes a gumball machine and the villains slip and fall.

[@alotofbaddecisions2046]

Edgar Rice Burroughs specifically uses the phrase "Fighting Man" to describe John Carter multiple times in Barsoom, which Gygax was a fan of. So that's why got the wording from.

[@CountsDigGraves]

I've seen it used in Dune as well. Staban Tuek calls Guerney Hallack a 'Fighting man'.

[@calamariaxo]

Really cool video. Love the small insights into some of weirder stuff!

[@owenbloomfield1177]

This is fascinating as all of this seems to make up the basis of the the Basic Set. It's the one I learned to play.

[@insomniceagle]

*high five* for naming player characters after Dune !

[@Spungdeeper]

There is a sloping corridor in Keep on the Borderlands.

[@neokonline_]

Subtle sloping passageways of doom I'll remember those, next time I make a dungeon

[@merlintym1928]

"Six levels was chosen [for the dungeons of castle Blackmoor] since it allowed random placement with six-sided dice" - The First Fantasy Campaign by Dave Arneson

[@NewWorldSinner]

The mirror is for looking around corners.

[@Tysto]

Historical note: Backpacks are very, very modern-like post-Civil War. Before that, people carried a haversack over the shoulder or a wicker basket with shoulder straps (or, even, a basket balanced on top of the head).

[@thedreameater]

Great video! DM's rolling for the player isn't strange at all; video games roll the dice for their players by default. In fact, it allows the player to focus on their decisions rather than the tactile distraction of rng.

[@HereComeMrCee-Jay]

It makes sense that a person w greater innate ability would improve faster, everything else equal.

[@Maravillante]

I’m just starting this series, and it fascinates me how the classes have evolved in every edition. Here’s a question, have you ever seen or played the DnD arcade games by Capcom, it amaze me how the first game you could select Fighter, Cleric, Elf or Dwarf and then on the second game they added the Thief and the Magic User, it was somehow the same evolution from ODD and then this second-ish version

[@DarkEmpireGames]

"God-Botherer" I chuckled quite healthily

[@mattregan1862]

I would use a steal mirror for looking around corners without putting myself in harms way just an idea.

[@Addictedgamer1]

This was a lot of fun for me to listen to.

[@shadowedsnipa]

This video was wonderful to watch, good job!

[@pskovca]

In that edition, Dwarves, Elves and Halflings were classes. There really are no races as we now know it. The demi-humans do get a lot of abilities and the level limit did not come into play much as the game was heavily adversarial with little or no story. If i recall correctly ToEE the maps were generated using the random dungeon generator that appeared in AD&D DM guide since apparently Gary misplaced the original maps.

[@bp2288]

I think sometimes that if D&D wasn't the first RPG and OD&D had come out today, it'd be lauded as a tightly-designed dungeon-crawling game with a bit of auteur weirdness about it. --Lack of skill system encourages roleplaying --XP from treasure means the PCs can makes free choices over how to overcome obstacles --Detailed encumbrance rules force hard choices between gear brought into the dungeon and treasure hauled out of the dungeon --Deadliness is offset by ease of character creation --Vancian spell slots means wizards and clerics have to choose a magical equipment loadout, paralleling fighters --Wandering monsters have no treasure to discourage fighting or encountering them, while their existence adds time pressure to prevent the PCs from searching every single 10-foot square wall --Food adds secondary clock while also adding encumbrance decisions --Hirelings and henchmen available, trading gold for additional support Etc

[@rick2402]

Such a fascinating video, this is interesting stuff!

[@ctsnicky]

Steel mirrors were used to look around corners or under doors, very useful.

[@d1morto]

OMG you're talking at a normal speed.

[@IrishJesus00AD]

d1morto had to turn up the speed to make it feel normal 😂

[@TheOtherWhiteNerd]

I’m playing this at 1.5x speed. Tbf, I listen to most videos at 1.25x speed lol

[@countingsheeple2428]

@@TheOtherWhiteNerd Funny, I'm playing it at .75 speed...

[@ysteintangen6875]

Another great video! Keep it up!

[@cavalier973]

I warned you on your “changing editions” video, just a few minutes ago, that I would be watching this again. 11/30/2023

[@andygarcia1918]

Your videos are awesome and easy to understand thank you!

[@Nickohu111]

hell yea fantasy grounds, it's how I dm for friends in Canada and Washington and it feels almost like being on a tabletop with friends.

[@adventurersgamble]

steel mirror could be used to look around corners

[@jakusopo8772]

I used the detect grade or slope underground a lot in my later games.

[@whiskeyvictor5703]

If they are indeed scanning their back catalogue, I wonder if that includes the big three AD&D core rulebooks. The legal scans of them that I've had for nigh on twenty years now from Drivethru (or was it RPGnow?) are of such execrable quality that my eyesight has suffered. A few years ago they released hardcopy reprints of the corebooks, but they OCR'd them, requiring reformatting (and introducing many typos like the infamous 7 HD dwarves!), and thus it wasn't strictly speaking a fac-simile edition IIRC.

[@JoeAuerbach]

It's worth pointing out that when people look at a character like this they probably imagine him playing through a modern low level game, but that's not really what happened. this guy isn't rushing off to fight 8 goblins and their bugbear boss with his friends. This guy is lucky if he and his friends fight five goblins and they must employ tactics to do so, IME. It's been a while since I played this game, but I recall it being WAY lower in action than modern versions.

[@LPCC]

Never stop; Just keep on going.