DnD(ocumentary)

Arrange a Game
1

Greetings!

Last week we have just passed the birthday of Gary Gyrax, (one of the) founder of Dungeons and Dragons. Way back then his game started as a dungeon crawler and laid the foundations future releases, which after many twists, turns, pitfalls, still provides fun and legendary adventures for many of us.

Almost every member of this forum played with one or another version of DnD so far, but many new players know only 5E, while certain older players tend to stick to older versions they know better, skipping the newer iterations.

Maybe we could celebrate this event by re-discovering these games by running & playing the different milestones (=editions) from the beginning to our present day.

What do I have in mind: I would like to organize (at least) 5 sessions, where we would play each major installment of DnD (ODnD, ADnD, DnD 3x, 4, 5E) with the help of experienced DMs (and players), who could introduce the concept of that specific edition, the differences in comparison to the other versions (THAC0 calculation, advantage/disadvantage rolls, etc.) and run an one-shot game with that. For these, I’m looking for:

Players: who are interested to discover the evolution of dnd

Dungeon Masters: who are familiar with (at least) one edition of dnd and would run a game (with some introduction and explanation) of that version. If a certain edition has many different version (AD&D releases, Dnd 3X), he/she can decide, which version would represent best of that specific edition. If it fits to the DM, the game should (at least some extent) represent that era
(for example ODnD would be probably a dungeon crawler)

The goal: Explore together, how this tabletop game changed the world (and how itself changed) during the last 40+ years. But most importantly, keeping true to its ultimate goal - having fun!

What do you say?

2

I am only familiar with 5E, but I would love to participate in this and experience almost half a century of dnd. I think its a really cool idea.

3

I could run 3.5, depending on when people wanna play.

PS: What happened to all the other systems that started this forum/the Thursday/former Tuesday/former Monday games?
I like D&D (you know, everything except for 4th edition :D) but it seems like the forum has become very 5e centered. Well, maybe this event might help with that.
Exploring - at least - other versions of this system.

4

Sounds good. I would like to experience a bit of DnD history.

5

Don’t sleep on Basic! The opinion that Basic (or BECMI or B/X or whatever) is actually the best version of the game has gained a lot of traction in recent years.

But yeah, I’d be happy to run some games if people are interested.

6

Thanks for your feedback! Actually, I’m thinking about organising this game not on Thursday, thus avoiding turning Thursday nights into “DnD Vienna” (copyright @H).

5e is wildly popular in these days, but I assume, the same was true around the 90’s with 3/3.5 or around the new millenia with Pathfinder. I hope, the other systems are thriving as well on Thursday nights or beyond.

However, depending on the success of this project, maybe we could organize similar “re-discovering classics” projects with other - nowadays less popular or known - games (for example Warhammer, DSA, World of Darkness games, Shadowrun, etc.) in the future.

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7

I would find that very cool and join if it comes together!

I unfortunately only have experience with 5E, where I could also DM.

8

Well, as discussed, I have played every version and can DM most of them…

While 5ed is obviously the best version in the history of the game, we have plenty of DMs for that. So, I would volunteer to DM a session in 4 edition rules (a very good and very unfairly libeled edition).

9

This opinion would carry a bit more weight if you didn’t say that about every new edition. :b

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10

On a slightly more serious note …

Third edition is probably the best comparison. Just like now, it followed a low period in the game’s history, and everybody was excited that D&D was coming back.

Not that players hated 2nd ed the way they do 4th. Second was well-liked, but had been stagnant for much of the decade while its producers pfutzed around with Spellfire, computer games, and those utterly unreadable Drizzt novels. The last time anything interesting had been released for the RPG was five years in the rearview mirror, and it had been a full ten since something people actually cared about.

So yeah, when 3rd hit the shelves, it was a big deal. Still, the popularity of 5th today probably tops even that.

11

well the populary of 5th toping 3rd back then is probably because the hobby has become way more mainstream nowadays (at least it feels like that to me)

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Could be. But it also seems more popular relative to other games than 3rd ever did (probably in part because there simply haven’t been all that many interesting releases recently). Fifth definitely caught a moment.

13

I would happily volunteer as a player to any edition ^^

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Don’t sleep on Basic! The opinion that Basic (or BECMI or B/X or whatever) is actually the best version of the game has gained a lot of traction in recent years.

Actually, if there is enogh interest, we could even dive into “spinoffs” (Basic RPG, Pathfinder). However, I would like to start chronologically first.

15

So wait, if Basic was released before Advanced, doesn’t that make AD&D the spin-off?

(Just kidding. D&D editions are weird. What are we up to now, 17?)

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Just a heads-up for anyone following this thread: We’ll be playing the original incarnation of the game tomorrow at Spielbar.

No qualifiers.

No mention of edition.

Just D&D.

See you there!

19

Just a heads-up: this Thursday, we continue our series with AD&D.
Feel free to join (even if you’ve missed the last game)!

20

General information: the next game in the series (Dnd 3.5) shall be held on the 27th of September.

Stay tuned!

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