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Re: For the Love of Basic and Boxed D&D

Posted by MortiS-the-Lost on Jun 13, 2010; 3:43pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/For-the-Love-of-Basic-and-Boxed-D-D-tp4599510p5174603.html

I also have another one to add here (although in fact it belongs to Big Cat) the 'Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Game'



This is the set Big Cat (Cat Black here on the forum) first started out with playing D&D with her sisters circa 2000 (I'll try and [dire] badger her into making a post about it too). I got to play a few games using this set recently because Little Kat wants to run a DragonLance inspired D20 campaign and Me, Axl and Big Cat have been using this set (supplementing the card counters with some miniatures and the doors from Axl's HeroQuest box) to teach her to DM/GM.

the closest Acaeum entry to this set I can find reads as follows:

Nineteenth (1999)
● Renamed the Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Game 
● Cover art is a red dragon breathing flame; bears the TSR Silver logo
● 32-pg rulebook, 32-pg adventures book, eight "hero" (character) record sheets in folding 2-pg panels (one for each of the eight character classes), a cardstock DMs screen/map, 6 dice in a Ziploc bag, and a TSR logo dice bag
● The last version of the Basic Set, before all product lines (to include 2nd Edition AD&D) were merged into the 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons system
But the Acaeum entry talks of a set that came out before D&D 3rd edition (D20 system) which is interesting because I always assumed Big Cat's set had come out shortly afterwards to introduce new players into D20. The set shares almost all it's artwork -including the D&D logo- with the 3 'core' D20 books (PHB, DMG, MM), in fact the D20 Players Handbook has a scaled down version of the same dungeon map on it's last page.
Closer inspection of  the Acaeum entry reveals that although both covers bare the same text “Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Game” - “The Adventure Begins Now”  the cover art is entirely different. Check out: http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/setscans/basic99box.html
This leads me to believe Big Cat's version is probably a version unique to the UK (the bag the dice came in has a little 'Made in the UK sticker') that Acaeum may not be aware of (it might be worth us contacting Acaeum and showing them this thread). Seriously what are TSR/WotC trying to do with having all these different versions? Copies of D&D seem harder to keep track of than Nintedo games!  

The set is currently over at Axl and Little Kat's place, I'll try and inspect it more closely next time I'm over there.

As I said above the artwork and format is the same as the D20 Core Rule Books. Also the rules are a 'stripped down' version of the D20 rules and as such seem to be fully compatible (in fact I think I prefer this sets character sheet layout). Regdar, Mialee, Jozan and Lidda are all present as pre-rolled characters, along with 4 others based on example characters from the D20 Players Handbook covering pretty much all the PC classes. Like most sets this set covers Levels 1-3 with monsters to match (with the possible exception of a Red Dragon and White Dragon!)

Little Kat is currently running us through the Adventures Book in order and I must say I'm enjoying playing some basic (albeit D20 system based) D&D with this set (I might see if I can convince her to run Zanzer's Dungeon under these rules once she's a little more experienced)

Billiam Babble wrote
 I have an almost by-wrote rant about first level characters being killed off by vermin which can be very negative for starting players,
Yea I've got to say that in the 4 games Kat has ran so far we've had 2 near total (1st level) party wipe-outs due to Dire Rats and other low-level creatures, we've actually nick-named the campaign Fatal-Quest. Kat proxy'd in some D20 rules for unconsciousness and recovering, and this lead to us bleeding to death on the floor for a few rounds on several occasions. We are all experienced gamers, but I can imagine this being really off-putting if this was your first experience of D&D. Then again basic HeroQuest (especially the UK version where all the monsters have 1 Body Point) stacks the odds far too much in favour of the Heroes, as an advert for a fantasy RPG computer-game I half remember said “If it was Easy it wouldn't take a Hero

On the subject other versions we've been talking about in this thread:

Billiam Babble wrote
So both sets may have been a precursor to the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, which never seems to have been brought out - definitely news to me!  Perhaps 2nd Edition AD&D was well enough without the need for a parallel set of rules. (?speculation)
I remember an old TSR catalogue I have kicking around somewhere has he D&D Rules Cyclopedia in it, I'll dig it out some time and see if I can find out more about it.

Billiam Babble wrote
What's interesting about this set is that the rules go up to 3rd level, but there are no references to an Expert set of rules, just numerous plugs for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  There seems to be quite a bit of speculation of line about how this came about and possible disagreements between Gygax and Arneson.
I've heard several rumours about the reasons for the separate D&D and AD&D during the 2nd editon era. Some revolve around Arneson wanting a simpler, less rules heavy game more in keeping the games they'd first played back in the early days. Others talk of a financial dispute between Gygax and Arneson, in which several law-suits went back and forth over the royalties of D&D, leading TSR into doing a rather sneaky move by which AD&D was promoted as the main product, which Gygax got full credit (and money) for and TSR kept basic D&D around as product but didn't promote it as much. Meaning  Arneson because of the wording of the law-suits got a cut of the money from D&D, but had no rights to a cut of the money from the (deliberately made) more popular AD&D. Of course there are as many variants on the myth as there are people with loyalties to each game and/or Gygax and Arneson themselves. There's no real solid evidence either way save  for Gygax being notoriously boastful and willing to take credit for things and the fact that AD&D wasn't necessarily any more 'Advanced' than basic D&D in all it's rules.

Well done with finding Red Box rules on Scribd!
I gotta say that site is a treasure house, I've downloaded at lot of PDFs of old D&D modules from there in the past, look out for one on there called 'Goblin's Lair' which appears to be an expansion for my “Easy to Master” set (and thus your “The Classic” too) it's got a couple of nice adventures to run, a kinda mini-game too, plus more 'Zanzer's Dungeon' style maps!  
 
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~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~