The Alexandrian’s newest video is the first part of a cover-to-cover Let’s Read of the 1974 Edition of D&D.
I find that a lot of Let’s Reads are basically just, “Hey! Look! There are words on the page!” Personally, I don’t find these particularly valuable because… well, I can just read it myself. My goal with this Let’s Read was to really dive into the history of D&D — not just how it came to be, but also how it was played and how that play evolved over time.
OD&D thus becomes a lens through which we can learn far more than just what’s on the page.
I did a careful page by page reading and commentary of Moldvay’s Basic and Expert rules a few years back. It gets really interesting when you start looking carefully and consider what each rule really means for the game as a whole, and the implications for the expected fiction that is meant to emerge through play.
Interesting. This was the set I grew up on (well, add in Greyhawk and the new combat rules and the armor adjustments … ugh), and I never really made the connection of the hirings for dungeons.
We just got used to constantly dying, or fudging rolls.
You’re right. It says something that the very first published character is non-optimized, or that the very first set of rules makes charisma so important, or hiring and supplying so critical.
I think you hit on something at the very beginning. This is about a campaign.
A military campaign into a dungeon to start.
Military campaigns live and die by supply and logistics. And this charisma rule and the effect of hirings makes this absolutely clear.
I absolutely loved this one! I hope you cover the rest of them like this because I learned so much more than I expected.
I enjoyed this immensely. I loved the context, my wife described it to me as bible study for D&D and I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve been curious about the D&D before I started playing for ages and I do hope you get a chance to maybe take this approach in some form for later editions. (Perhaps not reading the entire book, but dives into key differences and context could be cool.)