Was Basic Dungeons & Dragons Better Than AD&D?

[@Snyperwolf91]

I already watched Mr.Welchs explanation today about mystara and especially one thing had me struck and interested why it has its own cosmology and is even the best realm overall. Mr.Welch explains it like "Its an unexplored world where the players explore everything in it and have more agency for them in this world ." That would explain those preserved ancient civilisations and why some things arent so fleshed out like the forgotten realms because thats for the players to do which is an explorative realm/setting instead of an already known/explored setting like the forgotten realms are. And for the open /non-fleshed out setting of mystara its perfect for PCs and even DMs to play that setting with the set guidelines for the areas the PCs are in. And tbh the forgotten realms are way too fleshed out to have actually interesting adventures because those are DMPCs ridden , already explored areas and not so forgotten how the realm should be . Especially D&D should be adventuores because of the unknown , unexplored and dangerous places that no one ever dared to enter.

[@catfishcooler1566]

D&D changed forever when we went from "rolling up" a character to "building" a character. Allowing players to stack "race powers" with "class options" turned the game into an arms race. At this point, 5E has devolved into a silly talking animal superhero rpg. Fine if you're into that scene. But unrecognizable as the game I grew up with.

[@Agell]

5e is what you make it. I've ran 5e as a dangerous sandbox game without altering the rules at all.

[@petegiant]

@@Agell How do you mean dangerous?

[@Agell]

@@petegiant As in PCs stand a good chance of being killed in nearly every session.

[@jblock2490]

​@@Agellat what levels are you playing and how do you generally go about balance? I think I've only ever had a tpk when the party was level 2-3 at the highest

[@Agell]

I don't get TPKS outside of Tier 1, but I've killed multiple characters across all levels. My rules for "balance": Use what makes sense for the world or situation, then check that encounter against the difficulty thresholds. My combat encounters are rated at hard or deadly 95% of the time. I don't nerf encounters, the party can fight or they can get wiped out, it's up to them. They know from the very beginning that not everything they fight will be beatable.

[@darthtc23]

YES, Basic D&D is the best version. Also, the best book is Rules Cyclopedia (the holy grail of RPG).

[@Samwise7RPG]

You cracked me up with that, "playing a half-aasimar with Sonic the Hedgehog powers." Lol. I'm going to be running a B/X game soon. Making up a stack of characters for that now.

[@maecenus778]

If you can believe it, DnD has been around for over 40 years now. Of course it’s going to evolve and change to fit people’s tastes, which can often reflect what is popular at the time. Right now, players in their teens and twenties are typically into Anime and Marvel movies so some of that gets reflected in what we see in 5e to some extent. Some players see DnD as a way to express themselves as a powerful superhero. I grew up with AD&D 1e, 2e and 3.5 and though I am currently playing in a couple of different B/X type games as well as a couple 3.5 games. I can see the appeal of all the different versions. B/X is less about what your character can do or how they are designed but more about what choices they make as a player interacting in the environment. 3.5 is all about the character build, which is also fun but I wouldn’t recommend for the new player.

[@crapphone7744]

I always kind of figured that adventurers were outliers for their society, so while having a gnome paladin is extremely weird, I regard that character as an outlier and the world does not treat them kindly. They would have no place in gnomish society, and would be treated like a pariah by other gnomes. So I'm kind of okay with The oddities that do arise when any race can play any character class. of course in my world there really aren't classes, just people with certain skill sets so it's less of an issue.

[@michaelwallace6851]

BX is my favorite version of D&D. It, and BCMI, are probably the only two I would play.

[@kentuckyrex]

*Dayum*, those takes at the end. I loved it lol.

[@willmistretta]

Yes and no and it doesn't matter. Both the AD&D and D&D lines covered a whole hell of a lot of ground in the 25 years or so before TSR petered out completely. At the extreme end of the spectrum, the BECMI line was arguably more "advanced" that AD&D. Weapon mastery, the war and domain management rules, it got pretty crazy. Really, they both have their things that polarize people either way. Racial classes, d8 hit dice for fighters versus d10s, three alignments or nine, and so on. There are no wrong answers there. The bottom line these days is that you can essentially treat everything pre-3E as one grand game and it'll work just fine. As long as a monster's got hit dice, armor class, movement, speed, and damage listed, you can plop that sucker into OD&D or AD&D or B/X or BECMI and be good to go. It's beautiful, really.

[@mrc8308]

There is no baggage with the word race unless you bring it yourself.

[@Giles29]

I loved BECMI, but alas I played with people that were all AD&D 1E or nothing. All they would do was argue about how this rule or that wasn't the same in AD&D and we should use that instead.

[@dm_curt]

I played B/X when race-as-class was a thing, and later in 1e when it wasn't, but had class/level limits on the nonhumans. 5e Players see 50ish races and 12+ classes in their edition and want to have 600+ combinations possible, before multiclassing even steps in. You're right that it is an issue for creating your game world in that it has to allow for all the possible choices they want to bring in. Like the hypothetical gnome paladin. I think that at some point, you have to define what your game world is. In order to have 50+ distinct species, it doesn't make sense unless it's some kind of extradimensional or multi-planet crossroads like Sigil or such. I think that you have to say that the NPCs in this campaign are going to only be one of X number of races, and their cultures are such that only Y classes are going to be typical of their cultures. If you want to be outside of X list you will be outside of the cultures you meet, or outside of Y axis of that list, you're going to be a notably unusual specimen of your own culture. You and the DM will have to decide whether that character is appropriate to the setting. Maybe Daleks don't exist in your setting and are not allowed. Maybe your Gnome paladin grew up in Human, not Gnome culture, or lived in Gnome culture, but had a calling from the gods. Either way, they will likely be treated as odd (for better OR worse) by whomever they meet.

[@Agell]

Just throw out the extra races? lmao if you players have carte blanche, of course it doesn't make internal sense.

[@petegiant]

@@Agell 5E has a main focus on character building though.

[@Agell]

@@petegiant So what? This ain't a video game.

[@shadowandson3550]

Thanks for another great video. We still prefer AD&D for a number of reasons .Primarily because we have played so much that the lower level adventures have all been done so many times but that's just us.

[@28mmRPG]

I know, as far as our groups back in the 70's and 80's... We played AD&D (Hardcovers) as our core rule set when it came out. We dropped the pamphlet books. 2nd Edition (Hardcovers) was the next set of books we gravitated to. There were a few players that were introduced to D&D through the box sets (Basic/Expert) but those ended up being 2nd Edition converts as 90% of us DM were using 2nd Ed rules as standard. All the modules we ever used, we used 2nd Ed rules to portray them. Can't speak for anyone else in other locations at the time, but as far as our city and the players of D&D in my area... it was straight to 2nd Ed... the box sets were viewed as "intro" for newbs.

[@EldradWolfsbane]

LL/AEC also released as Advance Labyrinth Lord is kind of fun... Basic as the base and then use the Advanced stuff...

[@mazenkaiser7234]

Hello, so I'm not sure if this was mentioned yet in the comments but you mention basic D&D race or class as it was played in the day. If you read carefully back in the original basic D&D, *elves were the first fighting magic user mixed class. There were level limitations placed on both classes to keep game balance. Dwarves were a limited form of fighter/thief in the same way, as thieves were the only class allowed to find hidden doors and traps in basic. Dwarves had those abilities.*

[@peadarruane6582]

And as well between the gazetteers and creature crucibles etc there is a huge range of characters a player can play as well

[@freddaniel5099]

Until fairly recently I have had the opinion that Basic D&D was the superior game, but I am finding new appreciation for AD&D. The text stylings Gary Gygax used in writing 1e are a joy for me to read, but I am finding 2e to be more clearly written by David "Zeb" Cook and therefore probably the superior game! Great topic and you make a very legitimate argument and an enjoyable video. 👍

[@Ayeshteni]

The 'writing style' of 1e AD&D was atrocious. It stank of a high-school drop-out trying to sound smart. The amount of times I would murmur "that word doesn't mean what you think it means" was painful, before I gave up actually trying to read the books. But, that's just my opinion.

[@peadarruane6582]

The being on the nose provides the players and a DM with a touchstone to what they are dealing with. The Dm can always tweak things, but it provides a foundation, so this is like France but with mad wizards and overrun with werewolves. .

[@piRatCaptain]

At the time AD&D was trying to sell a new version to the masses. It was the first golden age for TSR and there were new competing TTRPG systems out there that were providing more flexibility. The separation of race from class was to give players choice at the sacrifice of Gygax's indent which was to limit class use by players to respect their rarity in his worlds. It was deferred to the DM so they can build the world they way they wanted. Since it was all new at the time they didn't realize how far it would go 30 years later. Now there is pushback because we are in an age of TTRPG glut. Books are catered not just to DMs but also players because many players buy all the extra books that were mainly marketed to DMs to use for their worlds. Its also funny that class is a more tolerable word to use when class like caste was used to separate the good people from the bad people in real life.

[@VhaidraSaga]

Great video. You have a new subscriber.

[@DiomedesRangue]

I would much rather play bx than adnd, but I'd rather run a stripped down O5R game instead because I think 5e has better bones. I know that's a hot take in the OSR sphere. I like DCC too, but the dice and tables are too much. Black hack is great as well

[@swirvinbirds1971]

I love the simplicity of basic over AD&D. I feel like Race/Class combos was the start of min/maxing characters that is a plague in todays game.

[@paulvalentine4157]

I prefer BECMI now (because I was pretty much in high school mode re: retired from dnd when Expert on came out), but when I was a kid, I wanted the Greyhawk map, the players handbook, the DMG - the hard covers, the art, the nonsense sprawl, the Dragon magazines, those books to me were like magic, like enchanted figurines tucked into dimensional crevices.

[@Joshuazx]

Human only.

[@fightingfortruth9806]

I dont even see AD&D as a game system. More like a toybox of ideas and tables. Nobody actually "plays" AD&D as is. They pull things out they like and leave the rest. Does anyone honestly play the surprise rules exactly as written?

[@jrs2949]

It was. After multiple long term campaigns. 2E always got bogged down regardless of DM's around level 10-12. Basic D&D always felt more streamlined, fighters had a purpose, wizards seemed more powerful after level 5 and the worlds were more upfront and easy to get into. Level 10-18 was hella fun if your DM incorporated Kingdoms and wars. Fighting Demi-gods and Immortals seemed to be a constant backdrop without feeling like tiny cogs in a wheel (forgotten realms deities) and on and on.

[@GrognardPiper]

I’ve always used this version of D&D for my own setting. I only use the rule set though, not Mystara. My setting still has gods, not immortals.

[@EldradWolfsbane]

Basic does have it's charm. Elves in the woods. Dwarves in the Mountains. Halflings in the hills.

[@EldradWolfsbane]

WRONG! Class and Race choices were in the Original Dungeons & Dragons. Se the Retroclone Delving Deeper that is organized OD&D and FREE!

[@SHONNER]

Basic and Expert Set came with crayons for the dice, and were sold at SEARS. That pretty much sums them up.

[@sunsin1592]

Everything after the demise of TSR is really D&D in Name Only (DINO). So it's all irrelevant in any discussion of "best." As for this discussion, it depends on exactly what one is looking for. I love both games and bounced between them back in the day. I like the streamlined simplicity of BECMI and it was much better at conveying the transformation to higher levels with domain management. And by the end, there was plenty of complexity there, too with weapon mastery, general skills and the like. But it was easy enough to follow because of how it accreted over time. AD&D was grittier with devils, demons, and the like and the extra classes. But as I've gotten older, I've played other alternatives to AD&D, like Castles & Crusades, but still play B/X via OSE. Now I'm thinking about going back & doing a full-blown RC/BECMI campaign, pulling in a few house rules and adapting Mystara material to my homebrew setting, which is also derived from real-world history with fantasy elements mixed in.

[@temmy9]

while i prefer ad&d mystara is a my fav setting.

[@LegionofMyth]

Nowadays, you (the DM) are required to change your setting to match the player's chosen character concept (background), else you're a bad DM. This has even been published by the core developer/writers/designers of the current game. Historical analogies are just that... analogies, ready for you (the DM) to use and manipulate how you want. I like that, personally. I'd rather have a well written society grounded in reality that I can take in interesting directions, while still having those believable roots.

[@BX-advocate]

I certainly think it's better. B/X is my favorite by far.

[@griffithmorgan4966]

Pretty sure Basic outsold AD&D. Funny you're showing hollow world. I just came across a boxed set of it in my pile of games I will never play because I have too many.

[@yellow6153]

AD@D 1ST EDITION BEST

[@tazmokhan7614]

Hollow World was a great world system, even though its basic, i dont compare basic, 1st and 3nd agaisnt each other, each one is unique enough that it stood on their own.

[@michaelwilliamson248]

As a teen I played bx but then peer pressure we all ended up playing 1e. Looking back I much prefer bx. With old school essential you have the optional race and class rules but increasingly don’t need them. I should shut up though as I’ve never played anything more recent than 1e 😮

[@totalpartyskills]

It’s okay to hold opinions on things you haven’t yet experienced directly. Just be willing to change your opinion when doing so if and when you do have direct experience of a thing. I don’t need to be bitten by a shark to think it’s a bad idea to let a shark bite you, sorta thing

[@chthonicmusings188]

Now I want to play a Half-ass Imarr, whatever that is. 😉

[@sebbonxxsebbon6824]

Not in my opinion.

[@gmrandolfo]

Good Stuff. Yep.

[@Top-Hat-Killer]

This video is 100% everything I've been bitching about lately. Honestly, I have zero desire to play anything beyond 2nd edition because of all the random race/class power fantasy bullshit in modern gaming. All my local friends feel the same way too, apparently.

[@EveryDooDarnDiddlyDay]

If you can't do THAC0 - which is just base 10 math - you have no place in TTRPGs. Call Of Dudebro is that way, dingus.

[@Ayeshteni]

Yes. Absolutely.

[@seppa193]

No. AD&D is better.