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/tg/ - /osrg/ — Old School Renaissance General
Anonymous No.96344863
>>96343950
I would say no. Both are unimpressive marketing attempts and they don't provide a solid ground for learning it.
My personal recommendations would be the either the Original 3LBB OD&D or AD&D 1E simply because they are where people who've played a while usually end-up after they hit up against the flaws of the other versions.
The former is the simpler system but also more unfinished and assume a whole lot more work on the part of the DM, a bit more of a do-it-yourself system.
The latter is the more complete package that requires you to read a bit more upfront. (around 338 pages combined between the PHB + DMG although a lot of that is tables you can just skim over)

My personal recommendation would be AD&D 1E with OD&D as something you can return to later when you're actually skilled enough to run a lighter game well.
Why 1E then?
Well for one it's the D&D system that holds up best over long-term campaign play, it can actually handle high level player characters as well as it can low level ones.
It has the best DMG out of any system out there, to the point that we always recommend reading it even if you're running something else. (quite a lot of it is commentary on the PHB sections as well so to get the most out of it you'd end up reading the AD&D PHB to boot)
It's the one with all the D&D cultural touchmarks in their original unexpurgated form like the drow, demons, devils, all the classic magic items and classes.
It's broadly compatible with everything released by the TSR-era D&D so you can run Basic modules only by bumping up the treasure quotas a good bit. (though personally I would ignore everything made after 1984 except the cool settings like Dark Sun)
It also has some very, very good advice for running it coming out the CAG podcast crowd.
There's a new edition of OSRIC coming out that's meant to teach AD&D 1E to newcomers specifically that's looking to be very good.
Cont in the next post.
/tg/ - Thread 96144880
Anonymous No.96171035
>>96144880
>What’s the best system for actual dungeon crawls?
3LBB OD&D, Basic D&D Holmes, Basic D&D Moldvay and AD&D 1E.
Basically nothing else whatsoever besides those and variants.
3LBB is a loosely defined game so requires expanding by the DM, or using the extra booklets but then you start approaching AD&D. Very good but requires a lot from the DM particularly if you diverge from where D&D went.
Holmes and Moldvay are both meant as introductions to AD&D and PCs stop advancing in power around 3rd-5th level. Some prefer playing these long-term, they're very well-written and easily understood, but personally I feel they work better as an introduction because once you start cribbing from AD&D to make it run longer it starts showing issues from the DM-side.
AD&D 1E is the most full-fledged game of the lot and allows high level play to work well (below 3rd level is basically considered a tutorial by some) but also requires the most rules investment upfront both because the rules are split between the PHB and the DMG referencing and expanding it as well as being written a bit ambiguously at points (initative, surprise rules etc).
OSRIC explanations helps a lot with this however and the new edition they're working on right now is aimed primarily at introducing new players to the game.

Regardless of which you end up playing to only use and run as much as you can reasonably do in a fast-paced manner. Dungeons are about PACING first and foremost.
To use an example of what I mean: if you run AD&D and don't know the Weapons vs AC rules to the point where it takes less than 15 seconds to figure it out then don't use it.
Dungeon play should be snappy and there should be consequences for being slowpokes. I personally really recommend the Classic Adventure Gaming Podcast episodes on how to actually run a dungeon to complement any rules you use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP3RhlkEhcI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8EjXVw0bg