I mentioned earlier this year that I would be playing the various editions of D&D with my game group this summer, and I also mentioned that I would review each edition as I got a chance to play them. As luck would have it, my group and I are on our last session of 1st Basic. I specify basic because in 1977, TSR release 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I wasn’t actually there for the thing when it was all the rage, but from what I hear, the idea of players who played a basic version, and players who played an advanced version had the consequence of creating a little bit of a rift between the two groups. One loved the ease and simplicity of the basic, and the others saw themselves as somewhat superior because they could understand how to play the advanced version. That’s all hearsay now, but having had experience with some of these a-hole elitist grognards, I could see it happening. Anyway, I digest. The gang and I have been playing the basic version of the game via what is loving referred to as the ‘Red Box’. This box contained all of the basic rules that a group would need to start into the game. It had character creation rules, combat rules, and monster stats. It even featured a beginner dungeon crawl that could walk a group through the experience, and prepare them for further adventures. We did this dungeon crawl just so we could get the quintessential experience so without further adieu, here are my thoughts on this pop culture classic!
I’ll admit that leading up to running this system, I was a little nervous. I had no experience with the system previous, and I knew that I would be having to learn all that I could in a very short period of time. Fortunately, I have a group that’s willing to rules jockey in an amiable fashion, and none of us really minds the process of a cooperative learning experience. Off the bat with character creation, I realized that this was going to be a special experience. The rules were much different than what I had grown accustomed to playing later editions. Gone was the freedom to assign ability scores as I chose. Instead, ability scores were rolled in the order that they appeared on the character sheet. This is an interesting way of doing things as a player could hope to play a particular class, but then end up with attributes that support an entirely different class. I was also taken aback when the book ‘generously’ declared that each player character would start the game with at least one hit point! This was to assuage any fears that a bad roll combined with a bad modifier would leave the player with zero hit points! Yeesh! Also gone from the character creation model were races, at least in the way that I knew them. Sure, you can play an elf, or a dwarf, or a halfling, but your ability to do so it based on your generated ability scores, and you must meet minimum score requirements in order to play these ‘demi-human’ races as the book calls them. It’s all extremely foreign feeling, but really fun. I had a blast watching players make their rolls, and realizing that the dice weren’t their friends.
I had another wave of uncertainty as some Facebook peeps were telling me to memorize my THAC0 tables. “THAC0,” I thought nervously, “I thought that was a second edition thing!” Alas, it was not just a 2nd edition thing. However, unlike 2e, THAC0 in 1st Basic is actually not too bad. There are a few situational modifiers that a DM can impose should he/she see fit, but the base mechanic is extremely simple. You look at your armor class, reference a small chart that’s conveniently on every character sheet, and if you rolled the minimum number to hit, you hit. The most disorienting thing about the system is that your AC is better the lower it is. So instead of saying, “My AC is 14. Therefore you need to roll at least a 14 to hit me.” You look at a chart and see that, “My AC is 2. Thus, you need an 18 to hit me.” It’s backwards, and hard to keep straight at times, but it isn’t so unnerving as to ruin the experience. In fact, I’ve rather enjoyed the simplicity of it all.
Another thing that players of later editions are going to miss is the huge block of skills that are typically listed. This is an entire character sheet for Basic:
As you can see, it’s all very... Basic… Classes give players short lists of skills that they get to take. Magic users have a list of a couple dozen spells that they can choose from as the level to higher levels. It’s all stripped down to just the bare essentials. I’m sure that there are types of players out there who would see the simplicity, and lack of things as a hinderance, but my group actually has had the opposite experience thus far. Without all of the mechanics to get in the way, everyone has seemed to have a much easier time with the roleplaying aspect of the game. I do my best to describe a scene, the player interact with the environment, and when they want to do something, I just say, “So do it. Show us what you do.” It’s been an exciting and liberating experience.
Combat is another area where I have felt liberated as a player. This may have a little to do with the fact that I haven’t been able to learn all of the combat rules as well as I would like. I have a basic understanding of how they work, but in terms of situational effects, and modifiers, I’ve just made an effort to avoid all of that for the time being. The one thing that I have really enjoyed as a DM is just how deadly this system can be. Sure, you might have great AC to protect you from being hit, but if you get hit you will most likely die. At least that’s the case at lower levels. Our first session, I shot a player with an arrow and killed the character in one shot. To be fair, the book recommends avoiding combat, but as a game master who typically avoids killing player characters, it’s really a breath of fresh air to be playing a system that allows me to do so without the burden of knowing all of the hours that a player spent building a character in the first place. It’s a fantastic bend on the game play as I’ve grown used to systems where you can blaze into combat with reckless abandon, and be nearly guaranteed to survive. It also alleviates the lame death saving throw mechanics that I’ve grown to loathe. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen saves against death add some great tension to sessions, but in general, I feel like the best tension setter is the knowledge that one wrong move could be fatal. Action without consequences just rings hollow, and I find that boring.
This is apparently going to be a pretty short review, but just like its subject, I really feel like less is more. I know that there are people out there playing RPGs who like to have thousands of player character options, and at least as many monster creature options. These types may not like this system as much. However, there are probably people like myself who appreciate being able to pick something up, learn it quickly, and play it at least as quickly. These are the types of people who are going to enjoy a system like Basic. There are a lot of things that the rules don’t specifically say you can do, but that gives a DM the freedom to decide whether or not they want to allow it, and more entertainingly, how they want a player to try to do things. It frees players from the shackles of an endless list of skills, and constant dice rolling, and it allows them to explore the imaginary environments provided as well as the character that they’ve created, instead. It encourages players to get into the game and all of its quirks as players act out actions in order to accomplish their goals. This is a great system to pick up and try out over a weekend should you be the type to play such games, and I can’t recommend it enough! Grab some dice, grab some friends, and enjoy! Also, stick around for next week to see what we’re looking at next!
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