Editions of Dungeons & Dragons
Most of you know that I run an old-school Dungeons & Dragons game for my daughter and her friends. We started when they were between 10 and 11 years-old and now they are between 14-15! We gained a new player on the very second session (the younger sister of one of the original players) but sadly lost both sisters from the group when their family relocated and the girls opted not to continue playing via Zoom.
As I began getting really involved in the game, I started tweeting a lot more and I would always mention that I was using the old B/X D&D rules. After doing this for months I realized a large portion of the people who followed me on Twitter had no idea what I was talking about when I said "B/X" and given our modern attention spans and how we always move quickly onto the next thing, nobody thought to search it up. I found out after probably a year or more of doing this that many of these folks ignored my tweets about "B/X" because they decided it didn't apply to them. A lot of these folks were 5E players, but as you know from following my blog, the vast majority of the ideas I share are things that can be easily adapted to 5E or, really, to any edition (4E might be difficult, not because it's "bad" - I don't think that - but because it's so very different from the editions that came before and after).
So, I decided to make a chart to illustrate to my followers what the different editions of Dungeons & Dragons are, so they could easily tell what I meant when I said, "I'm running B/X D&D for my daughter and her friends." Despite this chart, I'm still more likely to state, "I'm running 1981 Moldvay Basic Dungeons & Dragons..." and I still get folks who aren't quite sure what I mean. If you didn't play in the pre-3E era when there were two separate, but concurrent, lines of D&D (Advanced and "regular" which we always called "Basic" but technically it was just "Dungeons & Dragons" as opposed to "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons").
A few weeks ago while joining my friend Wes Allen from DMTales for a lunch stream on his YouTube channel, he mentioned that I should post the chart I made here on my blog so folks could refer back to it more easily than trying to find an old tweet I sent out over three years ago. So, here's the chart.
Now, a couple of things on this, just to head of a certain type of comment that I get from folks who don't read the fine print as well as some other general comments:
- No, I didn't "forget" anything. This is probably the most common comment. "You forgot XYZ." And it turns out what I "forgot" was something I specifically said I wasn't going to include. I mention on the chart that I'm only including games with the official name "Dungeons & Dragons." That means no Chainmail, no Tunnels & Trolls, no supplements by other companies that aren't games (e.g., the licensed stuff by Judges Guild and Mayfair), etc.
- I'm only including games with the name "Dungeons & Dragons" that are published by the rights holders to that name at the time. That means I'm only discussing editions published by TSR and Wizards of the Coast. Pathfinder is a fine game and it is a spiritual successor to 3.5 (I am still running a Pathfinder 1E campaign, although we've had a long hiatus), but it is not called "Dungeons & Dragons," and it isn't published by the company that holds the rights to the name "Dungeons & Dragons." That means, by extension, that I'm also not including any clones like Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, etc. Again, all very cool games, but they do not fit my criteria.
- "I've never heard anyone refer to 5E, post-Tasha's, as '5.5'." I get this comment a lot. The thing is, I have heard that, many times. Tasha's and the subsequent books introduce small, but meaningful, changes to 5E that many folks take to constitute a half-step difference. I've even seen it reported in the press this way. It's not something I made up (I don't even play 5E regularly). I get that you don't call it that, but it's common enough from what I've seen that I included it.
- I didn't put the next edition coming out in 2024 on here for two reasons. The biggest one is that it wasn't out yet at the time I made this graphic and while it was being talked about, originally we didn't even know the publication date. The second reason is, while the cover art for some of the books have been shown, it's still not out yet, and also I'm lazy and didn't want to figure out how to revise my graphic to fit it in. The real purpose of the graphic is to illustrate all the stuff that came before and influenced the current editions. The new 2024 edition is going to be so close to 5E that anything that influenced 5E could be said to influence the newer edition.
It was this "D&D Family Tree" that inspired me to eventually make the video on my YouTube channel, "The History of D&D Editions" which became (at the time) my most popular video and helped steer the direction of my channel into talking about the history of early tabletop roleplaying games and companies.
Okay, so with all that out of the way, here's the graphic. I know sometimes the resolution here in Blogger isn't great, so if you'd like a PNG of this, send me an email at samothdm AT gmail DOT com and I can send it to you. All I ask is that you give me credit for the graphic and include my attributions on it.
Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear your comments and suggestions. I'm sure a lot of folks will have disagreements about what I think influences some of the more modern editions, and I'd love to discuss it with you!
Hanging: Home office (laptop)
Drinking: Lost Spirits Distillery "Abomination" (neat)
Listening: "Afro-Centric" by Joe Henderson, from the album "The Freedom Sound: People Arise!" by the Jazz Dispensary. I have this one on vinyl.
You forgot the Games Workshop edition!
ReplyDelete(I joke. I believe it was just Holmes with new art.)
Ha! I laughed even before I saw your parenthetical statement!
DeleteYou've given me an idea to make sure to include at least the cover of the book (I believe you're correct that the text itself is the same) whenever I update my "The History of D&D Editions" video.
Hello Martin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your videos, and your Kickstarter book, and your drink selections! I've got a question I've not yet seen a video on (as far as I can tell; if you've done one please give me a pointer)...
Encounter Balance. That 5e thing where (2014) DMs are shown how to balance combat parties against each other. How far back does that go in DnD?
I'm aware that in B/X it talks about monster hit die equates to its level, and also dungeon level (limit a monster two levels up or down), pages b29+b30. But as far as I can tell on re-reading - teenage gamer me was long ago - not actual Balancing the combat encounters? BECMI talks about Balancing Encounters as an option, in the Master book DM section pg9. Master book for this to appear (as an option) is a long way into your gaming. How many got that far to read it? Is that the earliest use? Was balancing 'not a thing'? Recently, a long-time Moldvay DnD DM I know ran a 4HD** creature against four 1st level characters... TPK in two rounds. New characters, four large panthers, TPK. Eight character deaths in three sessions. That killed the interest in his game.
I've just watched your enlightening short video on the ADnD Unearthed Arcana - ability creep, heroes and all that. I liked the Cavalier. Enjoyed the medieval style constraints. Worked well with Dragonlance setting I thought. Though it's not for every campaign or setting.
Also, having worked in a Perfect Bindery, glue issues on the spine can be more common than you think: poor batch of glue, hopper running out (lazy no.1 or no.2 running the line and/or failing their book quality checks (...nightshifts) etc). I've returned brand new first-run 5e titles with similar issues. Think Troll Lord Games (the Chenault brothers) run their own printing press don't they? Worth a look at their set up. They've just announced land purchase for a bigger factory.
Your videos bring back memories of the teenage me and my first encounters with Bargle and Aleena. My first ever character was a Cleric because I didn't save her...
Keep up the great, and knowledgeable work!
Ian Dawes,
UK
Thank you so much for this great comment! I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and questions!
DeleteAs for Encounter Balance, you're very correct that it's not really something that was addressed in the early versions of the game, especially in a mechanical way, but *technically* it kind of goes back to the Monsters & Treasure Assortments, which you refer to with regard to stocking a dungeon, etc. The "why" of it isn't discussed, but the implication is that a DM is going to stock a 1st level Dungeon only with creatures in the 1st Level Dungeon charts, and a 2nd level Dungeon only with creatures in the 2nd Level Dungeon charts, etc. Now, do see things on those charts that are both higher and lower in difficulty in term of HD, AC, or powers to keep players on their toes, but by and large, they're "level appropriate." So then the balance factor really comes from the players figuring out where they want to explore, and whether they gathered enough reconnaissance to know where the truly powerful bad guys are so they can avoid them.
I do remember letters in Dragon magazine from readers about balance issues. James Ward even wrote an article in Dragon Magazine #16 (July 1978) about the very concept of game balance, and contrasts his preference for liberally giving out magic items with the style of Gary Gygax and Tim Kask, who preferred a more even distribution of gold, magic, and monsters so the game was neither too easy nor too hard.
The first time I really remember it being a "thing" was in 3rd Edition and the creation of the CR system. Balance issues were around *before* that, for sure, but in 3E it was built into the core of the game engine. A 4th level party was assumed to have four characters, and when engaging in a CR4 encounter (whether that was 1 CR4 creature or multiple lower CR creatures that combined made a CR4 encounter) , the math dictated that the party should expend 1/4 of its resources on the encounter (resources being spells, hit points, and expendable items like potions; and "hit points" could theoretically mean 1 player expending *all* of those hit points, meaning their PC perished). That for me was the first time that I saw folks really expecting the game mechanics to instill encounter balance rather than relying on player skill to carefully pick and choose which encounters to engage with.
I hope that helps! And once again, thanks for the comment!
One funny thing: while calling the Player's Option books "2.5" specifically wasn't a thing at the time that I'm aware of, I *do* remember people calling it "second-and-a-half-edition" at the time. Referring to "half-editions" prior to that would not have made sense, as numbered editions didn't exist at all prior to 2e.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, the first "edition war" wasn't between numbered editions at all; it was "D&D vs. AD&D", or more accurately 2e vs. BECMI. Back in the 1e and B/X era, it was more common to mix and match, especially by using AD&D chargen but B/X gameplay; the two editions were still perceived as the same game. In the 2e/BECMI era, however, a sort of nerd pride had built up around the game such that "D&D" was seen as a lesser game aimed at kids, while "AD&D" was the "real" game for smart and/or mature players. This may well have been what doomed the Basic branch, and been one of the many factors in 3.x and 4e being as complex as they were.
Thanks so much for the comment!
DeleteAnd yes, I totally agree with mixing and matching B/X and 1E very freely, especially the adventures. And yes, even though I started with B/X, once we heard of "advanced" that's all we wanted to play and we, too, felt "Basic" D&D was for kids, but we were tweens so clearly much more mature! 🤣 So that divide began, for us, long between BECMI and 2E, but I definitely do take your point that it did become kind of a "point of pride" to claim that you were playing Advanced D&D!
Thanks again! Cheers!