Why Your First D&D Was the Best D&D

[cailano]

This is meant to be a 100% positive and light-hearted series of love letters to everyone's first edition of D&D.

RULES

1. NO EDITION BASHING. To be sure, don't even mention other systems or editions. Also, don't bash your own edition!

2. You can only pick the very first edition of D&D you played, even if it isn't your all-time favorite.

3. You must list three reasons why the first edition you played is the best edition of D&D. They can be as serious or silly as you'd like.

4. Don't forget to mark your edition in the poll!

[cailano]

BECMI

My first edition was BECMI Basic, which I got for Xmas in 1983. I had never played an RPG prior to that and wasn't even sure what they were. I fondly remember this box as the best Xmas present I ever received as a child.

I think BECMI holds up well as a system, even today. It shows its age a bit (why were the thief skills so low?) but there's more good than bad.

Why BECMI Is the Best

1. Beginner friendly. The Red Box included a great tutorial, and a new player could learn the basics of the game in minutes.

2. Played fast at all levels

3. The Rules Cyclopedia (the compiled version of BECMI) was an incredibly complete RPG. Between the optional skills system, weapon mastery, and the dominion and mass-combat rules you had everything you needed to run a multi-year campaign, all in one book.

[roryb]

That was mine too. Ah, that Red Box! There was nothing like it. I have great fondness for B/X, but at the time, one of my friends had a dogeared copy of Moldvay. The art was inferior. I wondered why anyone would play that over the far shinier Elmore cover. Tsk, the innocence of youth.

I'd play either in a heartbeat if it was run ruthlessly by an Old Skool curmudgeon, complete with caller and mapper roles. That probably goes for 0e too.

[Lord Foul]

My first experience of RPG was in January 1980, when a school friend, having returned from spending Christmas in the US, gave a presentation to the class about this wonderful new game he'd discovered across the pond. He had these three books, with amazing pictures and full of rules and tables and stuff, and he described the basic concept of an adventure game that the people playing it kind of 'made up as they went'. It was called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and it was unlike anything I'd come across before. Total weirdness!

Already a fan of Tolkien and similar works, I was immediately bitten and set about acquiring my own set of the books and figuring out how it all worked. I still have fond memories of those early explorations, the magic and mystery and wonder of it all, and over time I developed the version of the game that really suits my own play style, which I am still running to this day.

Why AD&D 1e is the best:

1. While the books contain a huge amount of detail, with optional rules for just about anything and everything, you really don't need very much of all that to start playing and enjoying the game. The basics are very simple, so it is a great game for newcomers to get right into the fun stuff without needing a degree in advanced character building. And with less emphasis on players knowing all the mechanics, they can concentrate on just 'being' their character and experiencing the magic and wonder of it all.

2. But once you have started, there is plenty of extra material for you to experiment with, so you can adapt your game to suit whatever style you want. You like intricate, more realistic combat? Fine, there are rules for weapon speed factors, armour type modifers etc. You prefer less emphasis on mechanics and just want magically story-telling? Okay, drop all those fiddly bits and keep combat simple, but introduce secondary skills and magical research and other stuff.

3. The Monster Manual: a whole book devoted to groblies. What a cornucopia of food for the imagination, to provide ideas and inspiration for such a diverse range of encounters and interactions. The artwork was primitive by modern standards, but it still served as the well-spring for adventures lasting years and years, and with later supplements building on it to increase the sheer diversity of it all.

 

Edited November 12, 2023 by Lord Foul (see edit history)

[pesukarhu]

Moldvay Basic. It was the best.

1. It came with a crayon, so you could color in your dice. And dice, which you could color with your crayon.
2. The Keep on the Borderlands, the premier lets-kill-these-bad-humanoids-conveniently-all-in-one-place module, was included, so you knew which end was up.
3. The art has this weird fever-dream vibe, which was awesome. I'm sure someone had a really cool black-light poster version.
4. No skills to worry your little head over, except for thief stuff, which always failed, unless you were really high level or had the right racial bonuses.
5. Three levels should be enough for anyone, right?
6. Three-hole-punched, for your convenience.

Edited November 12, 2023 by pesukarhu (see edit history)

[Lord Foul]

I love how it says "For 3 or More Adults, Ages 10 and Up".

 

[leons1701]

Did the BECMI basic box also have crayon and dice? Because now I'm not entirely sure which one I had again.

[RedRajah]

It was a white wax crayon, if I remember correctly.

[Excior]

On 11/11/2023 at 4:44 PM, roryb said:

That was mine too. Ah, that Red Box! There was nothing like it. I have great fondness for B/X, but at the time, one of my friends had a dogeared copy of Moldvay. The art was inferior. I wondered why anyone would play that over the far shinier Elmore cover. Tsk, the innocence of youth.

I'd play either in a heartbeat if it was run ruthlessly by an Old Skool curmudgeon, complete with caller and mapper roles. That probably goes for 0e too.

how would that work in Play By Post?

[Excior]

2 hours ago, leons1701 said:

Did the BECMI basic box also have crayon and dice? Because now I'm not entirely sure which one I had again.

BECMI also came with a set of dice and a crayon

[Excior]

On 11/11/2023 at 3:48 PM, cailano said:

BECMI

My first edition was BECMI Basic, which I got for Xmas in 1983. I had never played an RPG prior to that and wasn't even sure what they were. I fondly remember this box as the best Xmas present I ever received as a child.

I think BECMI holds up well as a system, even today. It shows its age a bit (why were the thief skills so low?) but there's more good than bad.

Why BECMI Is the Best

1. Beginner friendly. The Red Box included a great tutorial, and a new player could learn the basics of the game in minutes.

2. Played fast at all levels

3. The Rules Cyclopedia (the compiled version of BECMI) was an incredibly complete RPG. Between the optional skills system, weapon mastery, and the dominion and mass-combat rules you had everything you needed to run a multi-year campaign, all in one book.

For me, this was also my first experience with D&D. I had heard about it in 3rd or 4th grade; the kids playing it were using the old white box set and said I could not play because I would not understand it, lol. However, a few years later, in 5th grade, we came across the game, and my life was changed. We used to play this sort of thing outside with wooden swords and cardboard shields, so when I found the game, I was hooked.

I remember the feelings of excitement I experienced when we encountered the Carrion Crawler under the rotten door in the 1st group adventure in the DMG it was awesome.

[roryb]

22 minutes ago, Excior said:

how would that work in Play By Post?

I played in one where I was the mapper and the GM was very precise and clinical about descriptions. It was very fun. We did not use a caller, and I don't think it would work in a play by post. Mapper certainly could.

21 minutes ago, Excior said:

BECMI also came with a set of dice and a crayon

I think it was supposed to. Mine did not have one. :(

[Malkavian Grin]

I first had choose-your-own adventure books and Final Fantasy 1. Then my dad opened a random box of stuff and gave me the only thing he had of his old D&D stuff he didn't hawk for drug money: a book of blank hex square maps. I was enamored by the possibility those hexes represented.

Despite all that, I didn't start playing D&D until college when I heard there was a gaming club. I bought the 3.5 books the week they came out, read them cover to cover, and started running my first game after only a handful of playing in other sessions (maybe 6?). Geez, I wish I could capture the energy and mystique of that first game again...

[PixCO]

I think it was Moldvay? My brother and I received the Red and Blue boxes along with a full set of AD&D books one Christmas. It was at the height of popularity and a few years before The Panic. I no longer have the B/X rules, but that DMG on my shelves is the '79 edition. B2 and X1 were included, and I always wondered why there wasn't a B1. Now I know. So it had to have at least been 1981 unless there's an Expert set I've forgotten.

But clearly whichever version of Basic that was had been the absolute, hands-down, undeniable best. Why? Well, I'm glad you asked...

• It prompted you to ask that question, which I'm glad for, and I don't see any other editions doing that at the moment.
• It was my first RPG and resulted in a passion that has persisted my entire life.
• Up until then, nobody felt we were mature or patient enough to actually learn and follow all those rules. No way would we ever actually play.
  • We certainly proved them wrong.
• I have a very entertaining memory of my character being captured and chained up next to a Gorgon
  • Who then tricked said character into petrifying himself
  • Twice

 

It doesn't get any better. That's just science :)

 

[TheDude2371]

Mine was the Moldvay Basic/Expert, though I didn't know it would end up being called that at the time.

My friend was running my Basic Elf character through an AD&D 1e module -- U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (still one of my absolute favorites to this day). Solo. Not sure how in the hell I made it through.

 

I then graduated to AD&D 1e through a D&D group that was run in the back of a local comic/gaming shop.

And the rest is history...