[Note:] This document is a continual work in progress. It also has a scope: it is not intended to be a full record of D&D.
My interest is in the D&D core rules of the game as it has evolved, those additional things that have influenced the core rules to a point, and some of the campaigns that are of interest to me (e.g. Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Critical Role) and those I participate in. If you run a campaign, of any D&D version, in Magna City or West Valley City in Utah, please contact me.
About dice: what we think of today is not quite what the TSR dice set was like, but since OD&D it was close and continued to be used with a couple very subtle improvements over the years in the dice themselves. The following are the dice we use today:
The d100 tends to come as a ten-sided decahedron, sometimes called percentile or d%, with a count of 00-90 (i.e. 10...20...90), though there are one-hundred-sided dice out there. OD&D didn't have a d10 or d100, but had the rest. The d20 from TSR counted 0-9 twice, using colors to differentiate: pick which you want for the second decade, zero is high. To roll 1-100 requires two d10s, as described in 2e, (1e refers only to percentile dice). The TSR d20 can (and did) also act as a d10 a bit more easily than a regular d20, but it means that in buying a 7-dice kit, you have the equiavlent of 3 d10s already, and a way to roll d100, (a standard percentile die of 00-90 can also be rolled for a d10). Two d10s act as a d100 (or two d20s), or a d10 and a decahedron. So modern RPG dice can be used with any of the TSR D&D games effectively.
When buying dice, make sure that the dice are weighted correctly (so that particular numbers, such as a 1, don't have a greater likelihood than others). When firsting starting play, only one set of dice is needed. Anything can be rolled multiple times. Buying dice is addictive, so you really don't need to anticipate beyond one set. When you find that leveling up, or certain kinds of encounters make rolling multiple times tedious, then buy the particular dice that makes sense to you. I have metal dice from the same type and manufacturer, everything in pairs of two different colors, then a third collection of yet another color with more 6 sided dice because of how common they are, and skimping on the d10/d100 styles.
About editions: as a personal note, I don't buy the compatibility claims that occur with edition releases (except perhaps for some starter sets). Even 2e had conflicts with its two different versions. Pushing players to later editions after the investment in the older game, and in older modules, demonstrates the incompatibility. This makes sense: there's always money to be gained in a new reinvestment of books. I consider the D&D game editions to be different animals, (even supplements change the nature and rules of the game). I can't use AD&D with OD&D, books together. Even the Holmes Basic Set doesn't quite fit either. D&D 2024 (5.24) books don't blend with 2014 books, though we'll see how compatible 5e books (such as supplements) are with the 5.24e core books. If you've used DnD Beyond, and tried to keep using your 2014 character and campaign, this alone may prove the incompatibility.
It is to be observed that those who play D&D are a large community, with different styles of playing a particular edition of the game and running a campaign. It's natural that the rules and play styles will evolve. I see editions and supplements and modules and all of that as a kind of report of what has come before and what influences what is played today. At the same time I don't think this justifies burying old editions for new. There are those who still play OD&D. Even Gygax continued to do so in the last years of his life. Find the game you like and play it with those you like to play it with. Be open to learning different editions, and even other RPG systems, as time and interest allow.
As this document evolves and gets bigger, I imagine certain edition descriptions will be split into separate pages dedicated to that edition. It depends on how my understanding of the editions go, whether I have copies (I prefer print) and what I have played or play. This page will remain dedicated to D&D in general, and as a lifting off place to particular edition notes. Before the question comes up: I like playing with printed character sheets and still use them even with online accounts, such as DnD Beyond, as the online tools often make mistakes or focus on a particular version or style of play. How a GM wants to keep track of things is up to them and their campaign.
The beginning of Dungeons & Dragons are war gaming rules published in The Courier magazine by Leonard Patt, and played by the New England Wargamers Association (NEWA). This led to a rewrite by Gary Gygax that became Chainmail. The connection with the Panzerfaust fanzine, and the Domesday Book, with Patt's Middle Earth rules as preliminaries, is explained in The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax also wrote the Fantasy Supplement to Chainmail.
D&D proper begins with a follow up to the Fantasy Supplement written by Dave Arneson. This follow up used Arenson's Black Moors medieval setting. Gygax continued to adapt the follow up with feedback from Arneson and this became the formal Dungeons & Dragons. The company Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR) was formed to promote Chainmail, and produce it, the supplements, and other games. The third edition of Chainmail was reprinted seven times (eight printings), each with relatively minor corrections. For D&D, it was reformed as TSR Hobbies.
The original D&D (OD&D) was printed as three manuals, the equivalent to the player's handbook first, then the monster guide, and finally the equivalent of the Dungeon Master's (DM) guide. It came in a wood box (the first two printings that is, the third and after being in a white cardboard box) with the three manuals and enough room for a third edition pamphlet of Chainmail to be added. Thus, OD&D should be thought of as a replacement to the Fantasy Supplement. As such, Chainmail can be played using the OD&D rules, with the board game Outdoor Survival manufactured by Avalon Hill. This used the dice system we are familiar with in pairs, especially several 6-sided traditional dice, sans d10 and d100 (or equivalent), and the Outdoor Survival map for on-ground terrain traversal. (Outdoor Survival itself can be useful for concepts of out-of-dungeon play for the DM to imagine what to invent.)
The Alternative Combat System, starting on page 20 of Men & Magic allows one to play using OD&D specific rules. It might be worth noting some of Gygax's 1975 explanation of D&D in the Europa fanzine, and clarifications published in the first two volumes of The Strategic Review, if deciding to actually play OD&D in this century. However, Chainmail is still necessary as a reference to understand implications from the alternative system. The sequential man-to-man play can be tedious and drawn out if following the rules (either Chainmail based, or alternative) without any of the modifications from the supplements. OD&D is still a Chainmail wargamer's game.
Four supplements, and the final (unnumbered) supplement, extended and modified the rules and concepts until D&D was able to be played independent of the Chainmail rules.
The Great Kingdom is the original game setting, Blackmoor being to the North, and castle Greyhawk and its city to the South. There was no restriction to the Great Kingdom. Scenes in Earth dungeons or landscapes as a medieval game was anticipated. The rules typically required a larger amount of players compared to today (4-20). Swords & Spells is the last hoorah of Chainmail, showing how to use D&D for the type of wargaming that Chainmail provided, thus succeeding it.
The Original Dungeons & Dragons Premium Reprint Edition released in 2013 by Wizards of the Coast is the quintessential box set edition of OD&D. It does not include Chainmail, Outdoor Survival (or any accessory map), nor Swords & Spells. The 50th anniversary book The Making of Dungeons & Dragons gives the original game history, includes the three game manuals, and the first three supplements. It also has descriptions of Chainmail and Outdoor Survival.
I'm interested in creating a campaign for OD&D. Stay tuned.
John Eric Holmes contracted with TSR for a Basic Set, which was a starter kit with an example dungeon and scenario, an added module booklet, and the same dice also offered separately from TSR for OD&D included. The TSR dice did not have a d10, nor d100, and though the d20 was twenty sided it was marked with two different colors, 0-9 each. One color was intended to be for each decade. The Basic Set is a more precise or collated explanation of the OD&D game, evolving separately from what would become AD&D, referenced along the way as the recommendation for more advanced play.
I would be interested in playing the Basic Set, and am interested in exploring the three modules listed above, especially Gygax's. The Jean Wells edition of B3 art work was considered too sexual so was recalled and rewritten, so naturally I'd like to look at that (and anything by Wells) because of it. B1 is interesting because it is the originating module.
The idea of the Expert Set is for advancing character levels beyond 3. I understand the rules evolved at this point, no longer reflecting OD&D or AD&D. B labeled books 1-12 are those intended as modules for the Basic Set, plus an abridgement of 1-9 called In Search of Adventure. X labeled books are modules for the Expert Set. There's also solo modules and accessories (AC labels 1-11), monster and creature books, trail maps, supplements, and magic and inventions books.The Known World becomes Mystara as time goes on, and is the locale of the Moldvay revisions.
I would be interested in playing a campaign from the Moldvay Basic Set, and continue into the Expert set with that campaign or character.
After the Basic and Expert Set, there are five Rules sets:
Rahasia is the first Dragonlance module, a rewrite of an earlier edition by Laura Hickman. I would be interested in playing this, as well as Pharoah. From curiosity, I'd be interested in playing all five sets.
The Rules Set series is collated with the publication of the Rules Cyclopedia:
The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game is a final edition, replacing the Cyclopedia, and with the sale of TSR to Wizard's of the Coast, marks the conclusion of the Rules series. I would be interested in playing a Cyclopedia-only campaign, an Immortals campaign, and a Classic campaign.
Three books were initially released that encompass, revise, and extend OD&D, and reorganize the original three volumes:
The 1st Edition Premium reprints, released in 2012, are the quintessential release of the AD&D core books. Supplements followed the original releases:
Also notable are the large Dragonlance setting from Weiss and Hickman, and a continuation of the Greyhawk setting, marked in about thirty editions between them, including the source books Dragonlance Adventures and Greyhawk Adventures. AD&D was a large industry, and the additional books of various kinds would take an archivist's focus and time to catalog.
Gary Gygax appears to be the primary source behind OD&D and AD&D, though Arneson contests this in context of the OD&D core texts. Revisions accumulated in Dungeon magazine, and got into later supplements, and a 2nd edition (2e) was begun by him, but he did not finish it, leaving TSR to pursue other role-playing (RPG) endeavors. It seems there was conflict over inheritance of private company stock by Arneson's wife and the new role she played until her shares could be bought by others, which Gygax could not afford. Those others ultimately displaced him, and in the end he left the company. Once matters were settled at the end of 1996, the game edition was reimagined, and thus began the 2nd Edition.
I would be interested in playing campaigns with anything by Gygax. I'm also nastalgic about the Dragonlance setting, and anything by Weiss and Hickman. I'd like to collect the Premium Reprint texts and copies of the supplements as listed above. If I can, then I intend to run a campaign at somepoint.
This is the first series by TSR after Gary Gygax's departure. The second edition (2e) had a series of revisions of the core books, beginning with the Player's Handbook (PHB) and the Dungeon Master's Guide. The monsters were released in a binder Monstrous Compendium in three editions, with twenty-one appendecies, four annual volumes, and adaptions in the Dungeon magazine that mostly found their way into one of the volumes. The Monstrous Manual tried to collect the inital pieces of these together, but there were still compendium, appendix, and other releases after. Anything in the Monstrous Manual is intended to update anything previous (not sure the status of after) but not restrict using the rest with the manual. The second edition was released as follows:
The revised editions of 2e seems to be capabile of continuing to use the existing 2e supplements. The update includes new layout and artwork, errata up to that point, and some modifications. As best as I can tell, the changes are not to the rules but are clarifications and rewording of the rules in places.
The 2nd Edition Premium Reprint, released in 2013, are the quintessential release of the (revised) AD&D 2nd Revised Edition core books. There are multiple supplements that were released for 2e, including seventeen(?) books beginning with The Complete in the title. The release of the revised editions of the PHB marked a new series of books providing alternate rules called options. There are also 5 starter sets, 16 spells and items, and 15 campaign settings. Forgotten Realms by itself has 52 additional supplements, accessories, source books, catalogs, and adventures.
I would like to play a campaign with the revised books. It would also be curious to see the difference between the original handbook and the premium reprint. Dark Sun looks like an interesting setting.
Wizard's of the Coast, Inc. (WotC) bought TSR after the release of the revised editions of the 2e core books and the player's options. WotC was then bought out by Hasboro. After the purchase of WotC, they released the 3rd edition (3e) of Dungeons & Dragons core books, dropping the Advanced title, (as the Basic Set series as come to a conclusion, abandoned after 2e). After the release, WotC was consilidated into the Hasboro Games division. WotC remains a brand name of Hasboro, and continues to be associated with D&D.
The optional rules of OD&D and AD&D; broke from the Chainmail dice system. 2e moved away from controversial elements of past books, and carried on from Gygax as editor and primary author, which showed the evolution of the game and community. 3e revises the use of dice, called the d20 system, doesn't seem as big a change as seems to be suggseted by the name.
The Systems Reference Document (SRD), and its licensing with the OGL (1a being the standard), were a huge boon to third party work on D&D, no longer requiring direct approval and licensing. It was also good to get a formal document on the game rules as a summary in a more formal way than the past. Several of the game settings were abandoned (no setting really dies in D&D it seems), Blackmoor having faded into Basic's Mystara was also part of the past of Greyhawk (though the real castle Greyhawk setting was never made public), and Forgotten Realms became the primary game setting.
3e strikes me as one of the more interesting D&D editions. Though Hasbro treats 3.5e the way it does 5.24, 3e seems significantly different. I would love to play a campaign with this edition.
3.5e, riding on the momentum of 2e and 3e had over 100 recognized supplements, perhaps approaching closer to 200, at least too numerous to note here for my interest. This is, I believe a testament to the success of the OGL, but also that D&D had become that popular. Three premium editions of the core books were printed in 2012.
Of note, during the 3.5e era, the Eberron game setting by Keith Baker became a staple of D&D, and continued to remain with D&D as the most popular game setting after Forgotten Realms (and perhaps Dragonlance) until Critical Role joined from Pathfinder to use 5e and broadcast its game sessions online.
Some notoriety is to be gained from the 4th edition by changing the license to the Game System License (GSL). It is more restrictive, and put off third parties from its use, and perhaps being fundamentally the reason behind the Pathfinder fork. Pathfinder was the main licensee of classic TSR magazines like Dungeon, and became a primary third-party publisher for D&D. All these licenses ceased with the 4th edition. Ultimately, Pathfinder forked 3.5e under the OGL, sometimes being called 3.75e. The following were the 4e core rule books:
Reminiscent of the Basic Set and its later evolution, the Essentials version was introduced. With eight core rule books necessary to play the complete 4e, and an innumerable set of books describing campaign settings, monsters, among other things, the idea of a compendium of the rules, character creation, and DM and monster references, it was a natural scaling back and summary:
In the background, Matthew Christopher Miller, known as Matt Mercer, a voice actor, first for video games, then later in Anime and animated movies and TV shows, was also a DM among his friends and family, and on social media. In 2012, a party was held where a game was played and a group formed that became known as Critical Role. Early on they switched from 4e to Pathfinder.
5e marks a return to the OGL 1a, and includes a gratis downloadable PDF summary of Basic Rules, which is a summary of the handbook, with DM and monster elements, without all the illustrations and beautiful artwork (though there is still some there). For players in the know, this allows one to create new characters and play without buying a book. A character conversion guide was also provided as a gratis download. WIth these changes, and a return to the simpler three book collection, this seems to mark a settling down period, as well as a reinvestment in third party and community involvement that had somewhat stalled after the fork of Pathfinder:
Forgotten Realms and Eberron continued to be the primary settings for D&D 5e until voice actor Matt Mercer began broadcasting the games that had been running for over two years in their homes on Geek & Sundry in 2015, as well as posting on YouTube and Twitch. This was Campaign 1 of Critical Role. A book followed and two followed officially from Wizards of the Coast:
Not including the above, following is a list of books available for 5e:
About a dozen PDF downloads also are noted during this period that did not have a print book available.
Many online websites exist for keeping track of character sheets, statistics, and even producing game play such as dice rolls. Most notable is Twitch's D&D Beyond (from Curse LLC). Curse LLC was bought by Fandom, Inc. However, in 2022 Hasbro bought it, and it became the internet front for Wizard's of the Coast. This kicked off the One D&D project, and led to the second great schism of D&D (the first being with 4e and GSL) when an OSL 1.1 was discovered by the public in early 2023.
One D&D is now called Dungeons and Dragons 2024. In theory, all 5e books can be used with D&D 2024 (sometimes abbreviated 5.24, or even 5.5 by Fandom, Inc.). Since the OSL 1.1 debacle, and the attempt to draft with public input an OSL 1.2 a damage control revision, WotC released the SRD under the Creative Commons ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) license instead of the OSL, which Pathfinder 2e Remaster has also stopped using (and now has established a foundation for its own open license). CC BY-SA 4.0 is the same license used by Wikipedia, and is recognized by the Free Software Foundation as a free or libre license. The core manuals follow the same pattern as 5e:
It is noted that the core manuals can be licensed in context of D&D Beyond, with or without the printed editions. Unearthed Arcana is/was available from D&D Beyond as a PDF for pre-release play, but requires an account to access.
©2024 David Egan Evans.