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Old-School D&D Rundown
In the last few years there has been a resurgence of interest in old-
school Dungeons & Dragons. People have been reexamining the
original rules, and reevaluating their play style. A number of retro-
clones have been written, so you can read and play (more-or-less) old-
school rules without having to shell-out for vintage books on eBay.
These are the original editions in question, and their respective retro-
clones:
1. In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson published the first
Dungeons & Dragons rules—three 8.5" x 5.5" stapled booklets
packaged in as a boxed set. The booklets were Men & Magic
(Volume 1), Monsters & Treasure (Volume 2), and The
Underworld & Wilderness Adventures (Volume 3). This set is
variously referred to as the LBB (little brown books), the LWB
(little white box), 0e, or Original D&D. Swords & Wizardry
Whitebox Edition is a retro-clone of the original three booklets.
There is also Labyrinth Lord: Original Edition Characters,
which retro-clones the 0e character classes for use with Labyrinth
Lord.
2. From 1975-1978 Gygax and various collaborators from the
budding Lake Geneva D&D scene published a series of four
booklets containing additional, optional rules: Greyhawk
(Supplement I), Blackmoor (Supplement II), Eldritch Wizardry
(Supplement III), and Gods, Demi-Gods, & Heroes (Supplement
IV). Swords & Wizardry Core Rules includes the rules from the
three little brown books, with selected optional material from the
four supplements.
3. In 1977, J. Eric Holmes write wrote the rules for the Dungeons &
Dragons Basic Set with a cover by Dave Sutherland. This is
sometimes called "the blue box" or "Holmes Basic". Early printing
of this box set included the adventure module B1 In Search of the
Unknown. Later printings instead included B2 Keep on the
Borderlands. I don't think there's a popular retro-clone of Holmes.
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Holmes was a curious edition in that it was simpler than the
original edition in many ways, was designed as something of a
primer for the forthcoming 1st edition AD&D, yet Holmes included
a few unique things not found in earlier or subsequent editions.
4. In 1977, the Monster Manual by Gary Gygax was the first
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book released. The Players
Handbook was released in 1978, and the Dungeon Masters Guide
was released in 1979. There are two prominent retro-clones of 1st
edition AD&D: OSRIC, and Labyrinth Lord: Advanced Edition
Companion (for use with Labyrinth Lord).
5. In 1981, TSR simultaneously release a new boxed Basic Set and
the first Expert Set written by Tom Moldvay and featuring cover art
by Erol Otus. Sometimes called "the magenta box" or "Moldvay
Basic", these sets were sold until 1983. Labyrinth Lord is a
faithful retro-clone of the Basic and Expert boxed sets.
6. Starting in 1983, TSR released new edition of the Basic and
Expert sets, followed by boxed sets of Companion Rules (Set 3),
Master Rules (Set 4), and the Immortal Rules (Set 5). These new
sets were written by Frank Mentzer with cover art by Larry
Elmore.
Original/retro-clone/0e/old-school
D&D Bookmarks
A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming
Grognardia One of the best blogs about the history (and retro
future) of D&D
Philotomy's OD&D Musings Meditations on various aspects of
OD&D
Sham's Grog & Blog Readings of the original three 1974
booklets
Delta's D&D Hotspot Math, history, and design of old-school
D&D
Swords & Wizardry The best original (0e) D&D retro-clone
Labyrinth Lord The best Basic (Moldvay) D&D retro-clone
The Acaeum An index, description, and valuation of published
D&D rules, modules, and periodicals
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Rules for Playing with an Old-School
Feel
XP for gold
Encounters are not all balanced by the DM. The PC's may
sometimes run into things which are likely to kill them. Running or
sneaking away is an option.
PC's (including demi-humans) can not see in the darkness of a
dungeon. Monsters can all see in the dungeon's darkness. If PC's
use artificial light, they'll have a hard time surprising monsters
(and may get ambushed).
The players must describe how their characters intend to disarm a
trap before they roll. They must describe how they search before
they can roll to detect a trap or spot a hidden door.
Old-School Dungeon Design
Context
I'm new to this original D&D. At one point in the distant past, I actually
owned the original three little brown books (and the silver Chainmail
book!), which I inherited from my dad. However, I never played with
those rules. Based on the reading I've done recently, I never played
anything like the original D&D game, even when I played Holmes
Basic (which I remember really liking), Moldvay Basic, or 1st edition
AD&D. So, here are some insights I've picked-up, which might be
helpful to others who are trying to understand old-school play style:
This is not the fantasy of World of Warcraft, or even quite the
world of Tolkien. Original D&D was inspired by pulp writers like
Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, L. Sprague de Camp, and Robert E.
Howard.
There is no thief class in original D&D. There are two reasons for
this. First, all the characters were essentially thieves. Secondly,
the skills of the thief class—picking locks, detecting traps, hiding
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in shadows—were pursuits in which all the characters engaged.
To disable a trap did not involve a simple die roll; the players and
the DM engaged in a dialogue in which the players carefully
questioned the DM, and described their character actions in
minute detail.
Experience points for gold was something I never understood. I
didn't find it realistic, and so I didn't play with that rule. That's
because the goal of my play was killing monsters (and creating a
narrative, etc.). Old-school characters are treasure hunters. They
get XP for gold because gold is their goal. They often get more XP
for gold than killing monsters because fighting monsters is a
diversion from their purpose. It's expected that OD&D characters
will avoid combat unless there's a fair chance of success and a
good possibility of treasure.
OD&D is a game which has a heavy dose of resource
management. Encumbrance rules to manage weight, detailed
time tracking even outside of combat, keeping track of available
food and light, et cetera. I always considered such rules boring,
and hand-waved them. That was a mistake. Considerations of
resource management considerably change the style of play.
The world of original D&D is far more artificial than the world of
3rd Edition D&D or even AD&D. It is a world that does not
privilege realism and naturalism—it is a mysterious fantasy world.
The laws of that fantasy world may, though different from the laws
of our world, have an internal consistency of its own, but those
ways are often inscrutable to players. The dungeon in particular
eschews realism; it is more of a mythical underworld.
Tensions, dualities, dichotomies
Gygaxian Naturalism (vs. Romanticism?)
James Maliszewski coined (?) the term Gygaxian Naturalism.
Literary and artistic naturalism was a reaction to how the Romantics
often depicted their subject in an idealized (or otherwise stylized)
manner. Romanticism itself was a reaction against the Industrial
Revolution and the scientific primacy of the Enlightenment. From the
Romantic perspective, the Enlightenment foolishly attempted to
dissect, analyze, and tear down nature—foolishly because the
Romantics saw nature as sublime. For the Romantics, nature was so
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beautiful, vast, and aweful that it overwhelmed the those attuned to it
(artists) were aesthetically overwhelmed, while the followers of the
Industrial Revolution were debased by their rejection of Nature. Gothic
authors, such as Edgar Allen Poe, were part of the Romantic
movement; the Romantics world had room for ghosts.
Naturalism, on the other hand, viewed nature as a scientifically
understandable machine. Darwinism governed the natural systems of
living things, and even human were shaped and constrained by their
constructed social/civilized environment. The world of Naturalism is a
secular one, concerned more with the problems of class in society
than the uplifting of the soul in nature. John Steinbeck and Emile Zola
(who coined the term) were Naturalists.
Maliszewski briefly describes how the tensions between these
literary/artistic camps play in D&D. Gygaxian Naturalism imagines a
game world in which goblins lead real lives—cooking, cleaning, raising
little goblins, making art, etc.—when they are not within view of the
PC's. Maliszewski say that "many OD&Ders, for example, who don't
like "naturalistic" orcs, preferring them instead to be spawned from
black ooze that bubbles up from the mythic underworld that is the
dungeon."
In the linked text, Philotomy doesn't use the world Romanticism, but he
does describe dungeons as "an underworld: a place where the normal
laws of reality may not apply, and may be bent, warped, or broken. [...]
It is inimical to men; the dungeon, itself, opposes and obstructs the
adventurers brave enough to explore it." That certainly evokes a
species of sublime world which would be understandable to Romantics
such as Poe.
Though I grew up under with Gygaxian Naturalism, I'm increasingly
exploring the idea of the D&D world (particularly the dungeon) as a
type of traditional theater, like Greek tragedy or even Noh. D&D, like
Noh theater, has a highly codified repertoire of formal elements, such
as meeting at a tavern, traps, iron rations, stock NPC's, secret doors,
and almost everything about the magic system. Even the character
classes could be viewed as Noh masks (where a type of mask
designated a role in the story, like hero, sidekick, or wandering priest).
We can imagine how a Noh witch mask/character does its laundry or
buys groceries, but such an intellectual exercise is unnecessary for the
enjoyment of the performance if we accept Noh theater on its own
terms. Philotomy's example of doors which automatically open and
close for monsters but stick tight for PC's is an example of a
convention which goes beyond Romanticism.
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A world which is Romantic (or even Absurdist) can be engaging by
virtue of its unique conventions. As long as everyone expects the
doors to usually automatically open and close for monsters, players
can engage with that world as far as is necessary. If a world is
consistent, it's not strictly necessary for its why's and wherefore's to be
known. Do we need to know (with apologies to John Gardner) why
Grendel always attacks the mead hall?
I suppose the nature of the opposition to Gygaxian Naturalism hinges
on how literally you treat it. Do orc literally bubble from the blackness
of the dungeon, or is it simply that they might as well for all we know
and care? Do doors literally want to open for monsters but not PC's, or
does it just happen often enough that it's amusing to say? I read
somewhere about one group (and I have no idea if this story is simply
an apocryphal anecdote) that couldn't get through a door, so they
made loud noises until a monster opened it from the other side.
It's also worth remembering that Realism is not the same thing as
Naturalism.
Ideas
These are thing that I haven't ready anywhere. I just thought they
might have an old-school-ish flavor.
Change the mix of monsters. In a given dungeon, perhaps a quarter of
the monsters are stock from the rulebooks, another quarter are the
DM's invented monsters that populate his world, the last half are
monsters unique to the ecology of that particular dungeon—you'll
never see them in any other dungeon.
© Paul Gorman
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