05 December 2018

Improve your game with bits of OD&D

I've acquired a lot of the best elements of my game from the OD&D school of design.

OD&D (Original Dungeons and Dragons) isn't just a worse version of B/X (Basic/Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.) It's a different thing. The two systems have a lot in common, but they're different.

Reading List

In order:

0. Mentzer's Basic Dungeons and Dragons Player's Guide and DM's Rulebook (so you can learn what an RPG even is. Probably every last one of you reading this can skip this one.)
1. Philotomy's Musings (so you can see the kinds of design choices OD&D is likely to push you toward)
2. Delving Deeper (so you can read OD&D without reading those messy little brown books, Greyhawk, Chainmail, etc and mash them together as best as you can)
3. White Box: FMAG (for a somewhat interpreted/altered OD&D)
4. Dungeon of Signs blog (For some of the coolest stuff I've ever seen anyone do with OD&D, especially the player's guide and this post which contains some updated rules. You can browse through the player's guide tag to find more classes and such.)
5. Into the Odd (for a modern game that feels like OD&D might have been if it had been written a few years ago. The blog posts are some of the best blog posts anywhere too.)
6. Necropraxis (a blog with a lot of good OD&D-related theory and house rules.)

But I don't know anything, so please comment to tell everyone what else is great.

8 comments:

  1. Ive known about Dungeon of Signs for a while now, had not seen the Viking chargen page you linked. IT looks like prestige classes. Neat, will have to look more at that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They could certainly be used as prestige classes.

      Delete
  2. The first link is to Moldvay Basic. I think you've confused these in the past.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fixed it! And you're right, I have confused them in the past.

      Delete
  3. You got a list of things you've pulled from OD&D somewhere?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't. Good idea though. Maybe in a later post. My very favorite thing is this, I think: 1 HD = 1d6 and all weapons do 1d6 damage. This means that any attack could kill any regular person.

      (I don't interpret HP as actualy, physical damage, btw, but that's a different topic.)

      Delete

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