For my money, the best of the old adventures was Caverns of Thracia by Judges Guild. It was written for OD&D (1E's predecessor - I don't mean Basic either) but it can be run "as is". You can buy the old version as a legal PDF from rpgnow.com.
As for TSR adventures, I would warn you off Temple of Elemental Evil. I think nostalgia is responsible for its high ranking because it is little better than a hack'n'slash dungeon crawl. Sure, everyone talks about the factions but they really don't play any part unless the DM practically rebuilds the dungeon from scratch. Temple of Elemental Evil suffered greatly from Gary's inability to ever meet a deadline. It was published as an unfinished product and that was made a feature rather than what it really was - a shoddy, slipshod product that should never have been released.
GDQ - Queen of the Spiders - ranks higher in my book but it again suffers from the need for the DM to do quite a bit of work to really make it sing. Of course, if you're going to start with that, the players will be starting with 9th or higher level PCs.
By the way, AD&D's combat system is a complete mess. It's an absolute abomination (again, another victim of Gary's inability to do anything on time). If you're going to run AD&D make sure you read the combat sections in the PHB and DMG (elementary things are scattered in 1E more than in any other edition) then make sure you and your group agree how you're going to handle initiative, movement in combat, weapon speeds etc.... It can be done but you're better off going to dragonsfoot.org and asking for advice on the forums than trying to piece together what Gary wrote in the PHB and DMG.
...As for TSR adventures, I would warn you off Temple of Elemental Evil. I think nostalgia is responsible for its high ranking because it is little better than a hack'n'slash dungeon crawl. Sure, everyone talks about the factions but they really don't play any part unless the DM practically rebuilds the dungeon from scratch. Temple of Elemental Evil suffered greatly from Gary's inability to ever meet a deadline. It was published as an unfinished product and that was made a feature rather than what it really was - a shoddy, slipshod product that should never have been released.
GDQ - Queen of the Spiders - ranks higher in my book but it again suffers from the need for the DM to do quite a bit of work to really make it sing. Of course, if you're going to start with that, the players will be starting with 9th or higher level PCs.
By the way, AD&D's combat system is a complete mess. It's an absolute abomination (again, another victim of Gary's inability to do anything on time). If you're going to run AD&D make sure you read the combat sections in the PHB and DMG (elementary things are scattered in 1E more than in any other edition) then make sure you and your group agree how you're going to handle initiative, movement in combat, weapon speeds etc.... It can be done but you're better off going to dragonsfoot.org and asking for advice on the forums than trying to piece together what Gary wrote in the PHB and DMG.
Ah, but that's all part of the "old school" charm of the game, isn't it?
On the good side, early D&D was the home-brewed creation of an eccentric do-it-yourselfer with the help of enthusiastic hobbyist contributers, an exciting new offshoot of medieval wargaming the likes of which the world had never seen before, one part rules to several parts imagination and several parts creativity.
On the bad side, early D&D was the home-brewed creation of an eccentric do-it-yourselfer with the help of enthusiastic hobbyist contributers, an offshoot of medieval wargaming the likes of which the world had never seen before, one part rules to several parts imagination and several parts creativity. The rules were not complete, they were arbitrary and didn't make much logical sense. The creater, a crusty pioneer in uncharted territory, was a professional RPG designer in an age where no such thing existed before, leaving him the freedom to do things his own way, which could sometimes have innovative, fresh, and interesting results, but could also have puzzling and bizarre results that were not restrained in any way by civilized competition from more conservative and professional designers, or by the luxury hard-earned experience of those who went before. The open-ended mish-mash of contributions from other hobbyist designers meant that things were uneven and contradictory. The several parts imagination and creativity (not to mention hard work) were necessary, because the one part published content was not enough to get things done alone. The books would have been written by nerdy wargamers for nerdy wargamers, without much that outsiders would find user-friendly. Fixing things yourself would have been a large part of the fun.
In short, early D&D was definitely a mess, but for many of its fans, that was part of what made it "work", and later attempts to polish the game and open it up to a wider audience were not always welcomed with open arms.
Like Wild West towns, the first automobiles, or the earliest airplanes, early D&D was raw, crude, experimental, primitive, amateurish, and inaccessible - count on it being quite alien to modern RPG publishing standards, and be prepared to have to put a little work into getting it off the ground
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
My post fails to stress that I loved 1E at the time and could possibly play it again... after I worked out how combat should work in agreement with the rest of the group.
But I also made the post just in case the OP or others thought the re-release of the 1E books meant that they would be able to purchase a playable game. I mean, it is eminently playable... you just have to create your house rules for combat first.
My post fails to stress that I loved 1E at the time and could possibly play it again... after I worked out how combat should work in agreement with the rest of the group.
But I also made the post just in case the OP or others thought the re-release of the 1E books meant that they would be able to purchase a playable game. I mean, it is eminently playable... you just have to create your house rules for combat first.
Please, don't misunderstand me - you're absolutely right
It's a very different game, for better or worse (and I would say that, over all, it's for the better.)
I think the group's reaction to the older edition, and the best modules to use with it, will depend a lot on what they want to get out of playing it, and what their expectations are. A group that's in it for the nostalgia factor of "I haven't played this edition since before the Berlin Wall fell, that was when it was really fun" will be a much different audience than the ones who are in it for the novelty of "4th Edition is fun, let's see where the game came from, and try a really classic edition from back when our grandparents were gamers!", and from those who've heard all the grognard hype about how awesome OD&D was and are in it for "OK, let's see what alll the raving is about... what does this edition have to offer that could possibly be better than the results of decades of improvement?"
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
Agreed re: AD&D's ruleset and combat system. I've just recently been reading my old 1e books again as I played through the old Pool of Radiance video game, because the game documentation doesn't cover all the rules. The DMG especially is pretty much a horrific mess and not at all up to the standards of what we think of in a modern RPG. Just about every paragraph was a stack of optional rules, suggestions, kinda-sorta rules and rules that were either contradictory or didn't make sense. There are still a few references to the old Chainmail game and if you don't own that ... you're outta luck on those specific passages. It's a game that assumes you already have been playing OD&D and wargames and if you're not familiar with them ... meh.
Folks who buy the new printings may be surprised to discover how terribly written it is and wonder how we old-timers ever played it. But back in the day we did play it and had tons of fun anyway, even when we were arguing over what the rules meant - there wasn't a lot of competition for AD&D and there weren't too many games like it so it was unique in a way and that was half the magic right there.
It's like comparing a Model A to a (Insert your favorite sports car here). The Model A is a horrible piece of junk in comparison, but it's a CLASSIC and we love it for that reason.
And all this is another reason I like 4e. Looking back and seeing how far the game has come makes me appreciate how much better the ruleset and presentation for new version is, and I'm grateful for that.
(If you want to play a version of 1e AD&D that is written with more precision, try Hackmaster. The fact that it's a more well-written version of AD&D is a bit ironic since it was originally envisioned as a PARODY of AD&D and Gygax's writing style. It's a good mix of mostly 1e AD&D with a little 2e thrown in and a lot of tongue in cheek humor. And the humor is actually optional if you like gritty and edgy or if you dress in black a lot and hate your life.)
Also, Keep on the Borderlands was not an AD&D module (unless there was some earlier version of it I'm not aware of). It was written as a sort of DM tutorial module for the Basic Dungeons and Dragons game, seperate from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It's somewhat compatible, but then again so is almost everything So if you're looking specifically for AD&D modules, the others on this thread have made some great suggestions.
OD&D, 1E and 2E challenged the player. 3E challenged the character, not the player. Now 4E takes it a step further by challenging a GROUP OF PLAYERS to work together as a TEAM. That's why I love 4E.
"Your ability to summon a horde of celestial superbeings at will is making my ... BMX skills look a bit redundant."
Ah, now I'd gotten the impression that DMs regularly used Basic D&D content with AD&D, and vice-versa - I undertood that fudging and homebrewing would sometimes be required to help it work, but not much more than any other AD&D product.
How somewhat-compatible was it? Like the difference between, say, 3rd Edition and 4th Edition (barely any mechanical similarity at all), or the difference between 3rd Edition and 3.5 Edition (close enough that the casual observer would only occasionally spot the difference)?
I always love learning new things about those earlier D&D editions - it's like RPG archaeology
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
If I had to say how similar it was I would say that the difference between Basic D&D and AD&D 1e is more like the difference between AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e. In other words, not a huge gap, just not 100% compatible. Classes and races are the biggest difference, I think. In Basic D&D there really aren't any races - Elf, Dwarf and Halfling are classes just like Fighter, Cleric, Thief and Magic User. But for a module, that might not matter much. I don't think you'll have any problems fudging it though - heck, I use Basic and Advanced D&D modules all the time in my 4e campaigns. The Monster Builder helps a lot for stuff like that.
So yeah, your impression about using Basic D&D content with AD&D and vice versa is pretty much right on, and a bit of fudging and houseruling will be in order. I just wanted to state that they're not 100% the same.
The game rules were reorganized across three hardcover rulebooks (the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual) rather than one boxed set (of three books, Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures), and a series of supplemental booklets.
Supplemental rules cut included hit locations.
The Chainmail-based combat system was completely abandoned. (I would argue with that a bit.)
Many details in class abilities were altered and clarified.
Character classes (bard, illusionist and ranger) that had only appeared in magazine publication were added to the game.
Alignment is broken down into two polarities, "ethics" (lawful, neutral, or chaotic) and "morals" (good, neutral, or evil), so there are now nine alignments: lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, lawful neutral, true neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, and chaotic evil.
Character classes from original D&D supplemental material (assassin, druid, monk, paladin, and thief) are added in the core rules.[3]
Fighting-men are renamed "fighters".
The relationship between race and class is changed. In the original Dungeons & Dragons, elf, dwarf, and hobbit are considered classes, where in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons the players select races and classes independently.
OD&D, 1E and 2E challenged the player. 3E challenged the character, not the player. Now 4E takes it a step further by challenging a GROUP OF PLAYERS to work together as a TEAM. That's why I love 4E.
"Your ability to summon a horde of celestial superbeings at will is making my ... BMX skills look a bit redundant."
If I had to say how similar it was I would say that the difference between Basic D&D and AD&D 1e is more like the difference between AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e. In other words, not a huge gap, just not 100% compatible. Classes and races are the biggest difference, I think. In Basic D&D there really aren't any races - Elf, Dwarf and Halfling are classes just like Fighter, Cleric, Thief and Magic User. But for a module, that might not matter much. I don't think you'll have any problems fudging it though - heck, I use Basic and Advanced D&D modules all the time in my 4e campaigns. The Monster Builder helps a lot for stuff like that.
So yeah, your impression about using Basic D&D content with AD&D and vice versa is pretty much right on, and a bit of fudging and houseruling will be in order. I just wanted to state that they're not 100% the same.
The game rules were reorganized across three hardcover rulebooks (the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual) rather than one boxed set (of three books, Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures), and a series of supplemental booklets.
Supplemental rules cut included hit locations.
The Chainmail-based combat system was completely abandoned. (I would argue with that a bit.)
Many details in class abilities were altered and clarified.
Character classes (bard, illusionist and ranger) that had only appeared in magazine publication were added to the game.
Alignment is broken down into two polarities, "ethics" (lawful, neutral, or chaotic) and "morals" (good, neutral, or evil), so there are now nine alignments: lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, lawful neutral, true neutral, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil, and chaotic evil.
Character classes from original D&D supplemental material (assassin, druid, monk, paladin, and thief) are added in the core rules.[3]
Fighting-men are renamed "fighters".
The relationship between race and class is changed. In the original Dungeons & Dragons, elf, dwarf, and hobbit are considered classes, where in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons the players select races and classes independently.
Thank you very much for the great information, RedSiegfried, that answers my question perfectly
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
