I bought a copy of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set this summer, and a few extras were included in the box. This was one of the extras along with the Monster & Treasure Assortment sets one - three: levels one - nine, and also the Hexagonal Mapping Booklet. It was a good find!
I was looking over the character sheet and was blown away by how quickly it took D&D to become really detailed and overly complicated. The original copy right for the Character Folder was 1979 (my version is from 1981), It was only a matter of about 5 years from when OD&D was released to when AD&D was released. There's no room on a note card for an AD&D player, that's for sure.
I'm still trying to decide if I want to run an AD&D game or not, just to give it a try. I've really only played it a couple of times and have lost any memories of the feel of game play.
I will freely admit that I came in at AD&D (1979) and so the choice between Basic and Advanced had already been made by the guy who introduced me to the great game. I never gamed with any other system and when I think D&D, it's the vocabulary of AD&D that I use.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there was a lot of storage capacity on the goldenrod sheets, such as pictured above (they can be downloaded from the Mad Irishman's site, but they use up all your yellow ink if you try to print out as they used to be) and for nostalgia, they can't be beaten. I did find that most of what was on there was not used all the time, so whilst it gives the illusion of complexity, an experienced player would only use certain sections of it with regularity. As a player of many years' standing, I have no problem with their layout and would use them like a shot.
However, in gaming with my 6.5 year old son, I find that although he is grasping AD&D with very few problems, the character sheet is the one area that I have to make things as simple as possible. So goldenrods will have to wait a few years.
Sigh.
Another awesome Otus cover!:)
ReplyDeleteDaddy Grognard, some of my first real games were with AD&D. I'm currently re-reading through my old books to see if I should run it or not, but for some reason I keep going back to Rules Cyclopedia. To me that's the most perfect rules set (just my opinion though). Nice to hear a different perspective though.
ReplyDeleteAl, everything Erol Otus does is gold!
Oh by the way, I ran Swords & Wizardry for my 5 year old and he had a blast! Although he didn't really the game mechanics or anything, it was just a hack and slash game. Have you checked out Kids, Castles & Crusades by Brave Halfling Publishing? It's a great way to introduce kids to rpgs.
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