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There is no copyright possible on game mechanics, so you can pretty much write your own completely D&D compatible game, with the rules taken straight from D&D (but rephrased, of course, because the actual phrases are copyrighted).

Which, incidentally, has been done for 1st/2nd Edition and, to some degree, with 3rd/3.5th edition.

For just that reason, a group of people have re-created 1st edition AD&D under the Open Gaming License: http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/

I ditched D&D in disgust during 3rd edition; manual bloat was too obviously a scam, not unlike the "cardboard crack" of MtG.

I missed it, I longed for it. I was seeking. Reading tons of reviews for other RPGs and dungeon crawl focused board games. Nothing ever quite scratched my itch.

Then I discovered the "retro clones". Now I'm running D&D with 1 manual, about 100 pages only and its a free legal PDF, printed it myself. Its like the Open Source of D&D! I'm playing again for the first time in forever and I thank the clones for existing.

If its 1st edition you want, then your clone is OSRIC. The manual is a little thick (400 pages) but its 1st edition, in print, and only one book. If 2nd is more your cup of tea, then, well, there is no clone of 2nd. However, 1st and 2nd are so similar you probably want to go with OSRIC again.

If you're a fan of "0th edition" (it predates even AD&D1), then you want Swords & Wizardry. "Basic D&D" is covered by Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy and Dark Dungeons.

-OSRIC-
http://knights-n-knaves.com/
-Swords & Wizardry-
http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/?page_id=4

Go kill some dragons.

If it's 1st edition rules you want, OSRIC is an OGL'ed clone of them, and you can either use old 1e adventures or there's also now a small ecology of new supplements out that go with it. I wish it'd get more attention.

-=Steve=-

Actually, yes: A project called OSRIC has been rewriting the (non-copyrightable) rules of 1st ed. into new (copyrighted, but OGLed) text.

http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/

Role-playing games seem to be ripe for having all the rules and settings put up in a wiki, under a truly open content license.

Here is a resource for various projects
http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Major_Projects
http://www.kirith.com/shapeshifter/Main_Page

Also, from what I have read about the net, you can not copyright rules. With that in mind, some bright fellows have put all the old school rules into a pdf and called is OSRIC.
http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/

Did that sound like an advertisement?

OSRIC is an OGL compilation of OD&D ("Old" D&D) rules, put together in a much more easily comprehensible format than the original books. It's sort of like an SRD for 1st Edition. If you miss 1st Ed., you may want to give it a try with your kids.

The way I see it, a very rough analogy would be like this: AD&D was like the Win9x series, based on top of OD&D. 2E was like WinME. 3E was like WinXP, and 3.5E was like WinXP SP2. And 4E is Vista. The other superior RPGs, (this is subjective, and can't pinpoint a particular game at the moment) like Linux/Mac/BSD. OSRIC, an open-source, AD&D clone is probably like ReactOS/Wine. I'm still into AD&D 1st Ed. (And yup, still dual-booting into Win98.)

Or to save you a trip to the shopping cart (plus I think you have to register at rpgnow first) you can also download OSRIC here.

I wanted the real AD&D rulebooks so I headed off to paizo.com to buy the some PDF rulebooks. At $4 a pop, I got the PHB, DMG, MMs I&II, Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures, for a total of $24. Not bad. The scans are decent, but nothing beats the real thing. Can't seem to find Hackmaster though.

My friends and I had been playing AD&D for over 20 years. We started with chainmail. Went through basic, not the red and blue books, 1st editon and into 2nd. Frist edition was a mess. Inconsistan rules, typos, and shitty book construction but we had a fucking ball with it. 2nd edition was better, less rule problems and some needed rule changes.

3rd edition is crap. Most of the soul of the game is gone. The books look nice but it's not D&D. It's a bad imitation with D&D on the cover. Come on, magic using dwarves, evil rangers, and wizards carrying swords. That goes against the very core of the game.

Your style of play sounds rigid and unimaginative, defined entirely by the borders of old school D&D. I mean, you can't imagine a wizard carrying a sword? Have you never once tried out another role-playing game in 20 years of play? Do you not read fantasy books or watch fantasy movies or anime or comics or anything by Howard or Lieber (or Tolkien) or anything other than D&D novels?

You belong to a subset of fossilized gamers that aren't worth supporting for a company. You have what you like, you don't need anything else, and frankly you don't sound like you'd even look at another game unless it had the D&D brandname on it. Why should WotC spend ANY time looking to support you and your outdated notions of gaming.

Gaming has evolved significantly since the 70s & 80s when old D&D was made. Old D&D is like COBOL -- it gets the job done for the people who are still using it decades after it was last relevant, but there's no reason to design new products in emulation of it. We've moved on to better, more expressive, and more coherent tools. New gamers expect more of games than the byzantine rules (like the convoluted initiative system) and arbitrary restrictions (like racial level caps) of 2e. Play should be fast, fun, and should enable people to create the characters and stories they find most fascinating. 4e is moving in that direction and leaving 2e in the dust where it belongs, with all the rest of the gaming dinosaurs.

And frankly, if you haven't bought a new gaming product in 20 years, then why should WotC give a damn about what you want instead of what young people want? You aren't their customer, and they're a business. Go play OSRIC if your old books are starting to fall apart.

The 1st Ed AD&D still has a place in my heart. I haven't played a real table-top game in decades but if I ever do, I'll just use my 1st Ed books. I have a hunch I'm not the only one who feels like this. If you don't have the old rulebooks anymore, you can buy them from Paizo or download OSRIC (Old School Reference & Index Compilation, a project aiming to provide a copyright-free version of early editions of Dungeons and Dragons). I still might get 4E at any rate, just for the heck of it and see how the game has evolved.

OSRIC is trying to replicate 1st ed with OGL material. I've not given it a good look because AD&D isn't my thing.