A 1974 Review of D&D

CleverNickName writes "Boing Boing pointed me to this 1974 review of the 'new' Dungeons and Dragons game. Some highlights: D&D was subtitled 'Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargams Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures.' The reviewer concludes, 'In general, the concept and imagination involved is stunning. However, much more work, refinement, and especially regulation and simplification is necessary before the game is managable.'"

Comments

And old D&D book got me into RPG video games

[mao che minh]

When I was a kid, my sister's boyfriend had this weird book about knights and wizards that he duplicated the art work from. It contained all sorts of pictures and descriptions of fantastic monsters and magical weapons and items. The artwork was great. It also had a brief quest that you could play. You were a warrior that had to go into a dungeon and hunt down a rogue wizard (called a "mage", a term that I had never heard at that time). It presented you with a narrative, a story, that asked of you to make decisions on what to do next. It also asked that you roll a dice at certain times and goto a certain page dependant upon the result. I remember dying by this damn giant spider about 8 times. I felt rewarded when I finished it - it was fun.

It was a cool book, a Dungeons and Dragons book. The adults told me that it was bad and made people act out elaborate fantasies and commit violent crimes. So I gave it up before ever actually playing it in the classic sense. But when this game for the Nintendo came out named "Dragon Warrior", I pounced on it. In a way, it a was a video game representation of what I loved about that book. I have since been a avid RPG video game player since.

Very interesting.

[Lendrick]

I'm especially amused at the bit about $3.50 apiece (or $10 for the whole set) being expensive. And here I paid sixty bucks for the three core D&D3 books and felt like I was getting a deal. I won't even start on how much all the other accessory books I've bought have set me back.

That said, D&D has come a long way from its roots. I've never played 1st edition, but I played a lot of second, and it in comparison to 3rd, it feels at the same time far too limiting and overly complicated. I was surprised how much they managed to simultaneously simplify the game and allow for so many more options.

Out of curiosity, those of you who have played all three and a half revisions of D&D, which one did you like the most?

Printing D&D

[duplicate-nickname]

Here's an interesting story....

My father's family ran a small printing business in Twin Lakes, WI (not too far from Lake Geneva). Back in the early 70's, these two guys from a small company came to my dad needing booklets to be printed for a new game. He and his brother decided against taking the risk of doing this large job and turned them down. It turns out that they were from TSR, trying to get D&D printed. Doh!

believe it or not

[xeeno]

I have a friend that has been DMing and playing since D&D first came out, and he still uses the original booklets as his world basis. I've read them, they're awesome compared to the shallow crap that TSR releases now.

Re:Not more regulation, less regulation

[Phantasmo]

I disagree, I'm currently playing under the best DM I (or anyone else in the group) has ever seen, and he plays by the rules all of the time.

When you stick with the rules you end the session knowing deep down inside that it was some delicious mix of skill and luck that lead you to success, not some desire on behalf of the DM to make it all more dramatic.

A skilled DM works with the rules, not around them.

Re:Ah the good old days

[Ex-MislTech]

Well....

You cannot use about 75% of the spells,
and god forbid the combinations .

They are too abstract to emulate in a PC game .

Best example is a "Wish" spell, mostly the
PC games are all heal, damage, or enhance .

There were alot of creationist spells in the
pencil and paper game .

Then there is all the subtlety of playing a
thief, or even subdual combat .

The intrigue, and deception, and mystery, and
owning of property, building your castle,
town , fortress, etc etc .

Building a fleet of ships on the grander scale,
or the low level beginenrs using small sacks
of flour to see the invisible monsters .

So many subtle nuances not available in the
world of the PC . Some I have not even listed
out of the cob webs of my mind and they are
long forgotten .

I have been with Ad&d since 1978, not much
of lately but I miss it dearly and have
seriously considered getting back with some
old school gamers and doing some good
old quality gaming on a epic scale similar
to Tolkien, Robert Jordan, or Stephen Donaldson.

The good ol' days, hehehe .

Peace,
Ex-MislTech

My poor memory

[Daengbo]

I wasn't playing in 1974, but, in 1979 (I think) I won a gift certificate from my toy store down the street and spent about half of it on a box with a dragon on it. Everyone in the thread is talking about a white box, but I specifically remember it being blue, with a blue book (same dragon) maybe 60 pages long. I had no idea what an RPG or even miniatures were, and this book was still big on miniatures. At 11 years old, and never having played anything but cards and board games, I read it maybe seven times before something clicked and I got this rush of excitement as I realized that is was so much more of a game than I had ever dreamed of.
I made my mother sit down and play it with me (she hated it). I found some friends at school and convinced them to play, but no one could really get the hang of it. I wasn't any kind of DM, either.
It took about another two years of me trying to find people to play begore I hit the jackpot, and by the time I gave it up at 17 years old, I had amassed 30 different boxed set games, all of whigh I donated to the gaming club of my university when I went.
I recently found some interest in playing again, and happened across a Open Documentation license game, here
If anyone can tell me what kind of edition that blue box was (D&D, not AD&D), I would appreciate it.

Ahhh Memories

[CharlieG]

Ahhh D&D - the lost hours of Jr High, High School and parts of College. The ONLY place you could get it in NYC was "The Complete Strategist" - Played EVERY Saturday for something like 7 years - 6 hours at a time. My best friend brought a childhood family friend along one day, and she joined the group. That must have been 1978. In March of 1980, she made it clear she wanted to be my girlfriend

We'll be married 15 years this summer. I still see the friend that introduced us all the time (we're God Parents to each others children)

D&D brings back memories

ChainMail

[sbaker]

In the review, it talks about "ChainMail" - which is a fairly meaningless comment for modern readers unfamilar with the context.

"ChainMail" was an earlier set of wargame rules for large scale battles between medieval armies. As I recall, it had a brief appendix covering some add-on rules to allow wizards, orcs, dragons and such like to be added into the battles as a bit of a laugh.

Using the ChainMail rules for purely fantasy warfare became very popular - probably more so than the non-fantasy aspect of the rules. That (I suspect) is the reason that D&D came into being.

The reason the original D&D rules seem confusing is that they assume full knowledge and applicability of the ChainMail rules.

Steve - Chaos/Cleric/Hobbit 19th level - circa 1982.

OK - I'm about geeked out now.

Re:Ah the good old days

[Lord Apathy]

Ahh yes the good old days. I started with the silver chain mail rules oh so many years ago. Back then you could pick up the phone, call up and talk to Gary Gygax in person. I had a 30 min. long distance conversation with him over some rules. Hell, dad busted my ass for that one.

Anyway, computer games have a long way to go before they can catch up with pen and paper. Neverwinter Nights seems to be the cloest they have came. But still have a long way to go.

TSR did do one thing I liked, they released just about everything 2nd edition to pdf format. I don't play 3rd editon and have 6 gigabytes of 2nd editon in soft format. When I do have a game I just toss everything on to my laptop and off I go.

Every thing is cross referenced and indexed in acrobat. That to me is the best use for computers in AD&D. I also have the Core Rules software and that can be useful.