Thoughts on OD&D
I recently read Marcia B.’s excellent Creative Commons version of the original three D&D booklets, and found the DIY spirit and creativity contained therein really inspiring. The following are my key takeaways from reading the text and how it will impact my own games going forward.
Notes on OD&D
- the general attitude of the text is inspiring, it explicitly states that you can play as anything you can imagine
- Races as they are presented, are a mess
- better races for my game: Humans can switch stats once at character creation, every other ancestry gets one minor good thing. Include players in design of races they are interested in playing
- Tolkien flavor is (too) strong. For my game, no more halflings
- modifiers only ±1 8/13 makes them matter less and prioritizes play over stats
- Inheritance of title as an interesting question for generational play
- AC scale of 10-17 seems like the sweet spot for a low-fantasy game
- Spell research rules are cool and make for really good hook setups
- Classes with different progression rates are cool and make them feel more distinct
- magical manufacture seems cool for the same reason as spell research
- Chainmal combat is bullshit
- more general class names would help players realise the broader molds these represent: ye of faith and wisdom, ye of strength, ye of magical talent etc
- magic items and treasure maps are great
- d6 attfibute checks: 2 in 6 plus/minus modifier
How I would run OD&D
- simplify thief skills to scaling d6 rolls
- simple attribute modifiers ±1 at 8/13
- single saving throw like S&W - ascending armor class
- simple side initiative - death at > neg level
- magic-user starts with read magic and 1 spell of choice
- No darkvision for PCs
- Crit = max damage
- story XP like Black Sword Hack
Looking at this I should probably just run Swords & Wizardry Core with a few house rules.